


The Faerie Jar

by hcope



Series: The8 Ships 30K Agenda [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Evil OMC, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Murder, Non-Consensual Touching, Possessive Behavior, Sharing a Bed, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-09-07 22:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hcope/pseuds/hcope
Summary: When he was little, Seokmin would hunt for faeries in the woods, bringing home lightning bugs in glass jars that his mother let him keep until it was time for bed, telling him then that they had to return to the other side of the veil and couldn’t stay with him any longer. Unperturbed by the loss of his faeries every night, he simply went out to catch more the next night, trapping those as well in the same glass jars to be lined up along his windowsill where they would dance and glow for him against the gathering darkness.He never thought it cruel. But then, he never considered it from the faeries’ point of view.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is intended in roughly the same spirit as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
> 
> Basically, this is fiction. A portion of fandom tends to blur the line between actual, real people/celebrity personas and fictionalized versions of those personas that might be employed in storytelling. I want to, for the purpose of my stories, un-blur that line. I am not writing about real people; I am writing about fictional characters whose personalities are inferred from public personas and, yes, borrow the names and likenesses of real people but are fictional characters all the same. Nothing here is meant to depict the actual idols of Seventeen (or any other group/individual) in any way. This work bears absolutely no intent to suggest that anything included herein is a representation of reality, even when elements of real world circumstances (“idol ‘verse” fics) and events are depicted. None of this is speculation or aspersion – it is merely a story.
> 
> If you create or consume art using the likenesses of real people, please don’t confuse the art with the actual, real person. Please respect the dignity and privacy of these idols in the real world. If you care about these people, maintain the separation of fanworks/fantasies and reality; it’s what allows us to let our imaginations run wild and creativity carry us away without being absolute dicks at the same time.
> 
> That being said, I hope you do enjoy the fic.
> 
> Warnings: This fic includes heavy themes associated with a human being kidnapped and held captive by an enormously powerful magical being that wants to possess him mentally, physically, and (it is heavily implied) sexually. No explicitly sexual violence takes place, but there is unwanted touching, mind control/manipulation, a coerced kiss, terrorization, seriously skeevy behavior, and, again, generally what one would expect from this scenario. There is also some rather intense violence and abuse/torture, both depicted and discussed.
> 
> If the premise for this fic sounds like something that is likely to squick/disturb you, please don’t bother reading it. It’s just a fic about DK finding a bit of hero inside himself in a very bad situation; you won’t miss all that much.

Seokmin used to catch fireflies. When he was little, he would hunt for faeries in the woods, bringing home lightning bugs in glass jars that his mother let him keep until it was time for bed, telling him then that they had to return to the other side of the veil and couldn’t stay with him any longer. Seokmin was delighted by the game, still in that youthful season where magic seemed very real and nothing could keep his spirits down for long. Unperturbed by the loss of his faeries every night, he simply went out to catch more the next night, trapping those as well in the same glass jars to be lined up along his windowsill where they would dance and glow for him against the gathering darkness, a beacon to guide his sisters home from their jobs in the market and governor’s house.

He never thought it cruel. But then, he never considered it from the fireflies’ point of view.

The window ledge he sits on is wide and comfortable, the wood smooth and strangely soft beneath his bare knees as he stares out and down, down, down at the dense silvery nothingness that is all he can see below him. He has been awake for several hours now and there is no sign of any life here. The room’s only door has no latch and the only window is set in what appears to be the side of an impossibly tall tower, stretching up into the clouds where Seokmin now huddles against the frosty winds of the upper atmosphere.

He has explored the room thoroughly and found a great deal of interest, but reading finely bound books and running his hands over the many golden trinkets that clutter the shelves and surfaces lose their appeal in the face of kidnapping and imprisonment. And what else could be happening to him? His mother always did warn him not to stray too deep into the woods. The woods, she said, are full of creatures that would just _eat him up_.

Well. He has not been eaten yet, but something about this place makes him feel like prey – like he is being watched, like he is being toyed with, like he has no idea what he has gotten himself into, ensnared in the machinations of a being much larger than himself.

A firefly, trapped in a prison of glass, waiting for the dawn to break.

He isn’t even sure where he’s getting this sensation _from_, that is the strange thing, but it feels viscerally true that he is in danger here. Maybe it’s how very large everything is; the shelves extend nearly up to the ceiling, which must be at least twenty feet high, and the window Seokmin occupies is wider than his spread arms and twice again as tall. The many baubles and curiosities scattered around the room are both familiar and unfamiliar, but even the treasures he has seen before in books and the finer shops in town are warped and peculiar, their proportions seeming just that slightest bit off. The bed in the corner is the most bizarre, taking up nearly a fifth of the room – no small feat – and with twisting wooden bedposts that arch overhead like trees, thin but strong and almost seeming to be alive somehow, whispering to Seokmin a faintly echoing song in the back of his mind when he wanders too close.

It is all very odd. Disconcerting. Alarming, mostly because Seokmin has no idea where he is, knows only that when he went to sleep he was in the woods, lying across the thickest bough of his favorite oak tree and napping in the sun.

He has, of course, considered that he might be dead, but he doesn’t think he is.

He hopes he isn’t.

He would really, really like to not be dead.

A sound at the door makes him turn, nearly losing his balance in the windowsill as he whips around to stare wide-eyed at the other side of the room. He catches himself on the gently curved edge of the window frame, his fingers white-knuckled, his legs splayed out to prevent himself from falling to his most assured death. In his chest, his heart is beating wildly, and he could almost swear he sees his shirt flutter with its motion – though perhaps that’s just the wind.

“Are you awake, little one?” someone calls, the door beginning to open as the sound carries through it.

Seokmin climbs down off of the windowsill – a four foot drop to the floor – and stands to face the doorway. Self-consciously, he brushes his hands on his pants, trying to clean himself up a little. He immediately feels stupid. Why should he try to look presentable for his kidnapper? _They’re_ the one with something to explain themselves about, not _him_.

Petulantly, he ruffles his hair up, then quickly smooths it down, feeling dumb all over again. He barely has time to cross his arms hurriedly over his chest before the door opens completely, revealing what is easily the most beautiful person Seokmin has ever seen.

The man’s face is perfect, chiseled but soft somehow, his eyes bright as sunbeams and his lips clear-sky blue. His hair is long, brushing the floor gently behind him in silver-white arcs as he steps forward, smiling – oh, he’s _smiling_, and it is _beautiful_, and Seokmin feels happier than he ever has in his life – and radiating goodness in a way that makes Seokmin want to fall to his knees and thank this man for existing.

“Come now, my pretty blossom, no need to kneel,” the perfect man says, chuckling like birds in flight, like Seokmin’s mother hugging him after a long day, like, like –

Like a god, gracing Seokmin with his presence so undeservedly.

The man – god, whatever he is – walks towards Seokmin with long strides, and Seokmin can only stare at him as he does. As he comes closer, the man seems to shrink, not becoming small but no longer filling the room so completely, no longer towering over Seokmin and everything in Seokmin’s sight; by the time he is within reach of Seokmin, he cannot be more than seven feet tall – still much, much taller than Seokmin is but in a way that is almost … comforting. Seokmin stares up at him, and the impossible man looks down upon him.

It is a _gift_.

Seokmin shudders as the beautiful man helps him to his feet with strong hands, his skin hard and freezing cold. It feels like touching glass, and Seokmin closes and opens his fists a few times as his palms tingle with the sensation of a million tiny cuts. When he looks down, though, there is no blood and he appears to be uninjured.

“Of course you are, my darling,” the man says – he called Seokmin _darling_; Seokmin blushes furiously, his cheeks beginning to hurt from smiling so hard – “I would never hurt you.” He reaches out, brushing the back of his hand against Seokmin’s cheek. The same strange sensation follows his touch, but Seokmin doesn’t mind it – he could never mind anything this man did. “What is your name, little flower?” the man asks, his voice like honey, catching in Seokmin’s chest and drawing his answer from him thoughtlessly.

“Seokmin, my, I –” Seokmin does not know how to address him. He feels embarrassed, flushing and wanting to look away, but –

He _can’t_.

“You may call me Numen, my little rosebud,” the man coos. “Do not be afraid to speak to me. I wish us to converse easily, if you are to be mine.”

Seokmin is nodding, eager, agreeing already before the last part of Numen’s speech catches up to him. Then, he stops.

“Wait, what?” he asks, confused, his head feeling water-logged, the room seeming to waver dizzyingly as his lips part. “Belong to you?” His stomach churns, something deep inside of him whispering to just look at Numen, hold his gaze, stay still, it’s okay. He swallows thickly, inexplicable nausea churning in his gut.

“Yes, little Seokmin, my precious rose,” Numen says, smiling – and oh, a shudder runs through Seokmin again, the sight as breathtaking the second time as the first – “I have brought you here to be mine. Do not be afraid; I will take good care of you.”

Numen’s voice is soothing, lulling like a warm breeze in summer, and Seokmin feels pulled by it, drawn into another nod, an acquiescence on his lips, but he stops himself … barely. He shakes his head, trying to clear it. Numen’s smile flickers and Seokmin feels a pang of regret, of self-directed anger, at taking that smile from him – and from Seokmin himself. But, no. Wait. _Wait_. He shakes himself again.

“Wait,” Seokmin says, taking a step back. He brings his hands up, fussing with his sleeves where they come down over his wrists. “Wait, I don’t – I don’t belong to you. Slavery isn’t legal in –”

“Oh, no, dear one, you misunderstand,” Numen says, booming out a laugh like church bells.

Seokmin grins, relieved, swaying back into Numen’s space. “Oh, good,” he says, feeling light, feeling happy and full of sunshine and air. “That’s good.”

“Yes,” Numen says, seeming amused. “You are not my servant, Seokmin; you will be my bridegroom.”

For a moment, Seokmin’s mind is empty. The words don’t seem to be processing, though he knows Numen said _something_, and it must be something nice, Seokmin knows it was something nice, because Numen is smiling at him, is happy, is reaching for Seokmin again and Seokmin wants to touch him, to be held, to belong to Numen, yes, he does, he belongs to Numen, he belongs here, with him, he belongs –

A sudden crash from behind Numen makes Seokmin jump, his socked feet slipping out from beneath him on the marble floor and sending him down on his ass.

He blinks up at Numen, whose expression is _terrifying_.

Suddenly, Seokmin has no trouble at all remembering that he does not – does not, does not, does _not_ – want to belong to Numen in any capacity.

He scrambles away, keeping Numen in his line of sight, as the man grows again before Seokmin’s eyes and spins on his heel, the very air in the room seeming to compress, sucked out to make space for his unearthly presence. The sunlight darkens, thickens, turns green and sickly, and Seokmin presses himself against the cold stone of the corner he has backed himself into.

“_Maggot_, I thought I told you to prepare the silver for supper,” Numen hisses, his voice like thunder but petrifying in a way a storm hasn’t been since Seokmin was very, very young.

There is someone in the doorway, someone human-sized and swaying – or maybe that’s just the way Seokmin’s vision is swimming. Everything is tilting, getting hazy. Suddenly, the light in the room is too much, too bright, stomach-churning, and he closes his eyes but it doesn’t help.

“Get out, and don’t show your sniveling face again unless I call for it,” Numen spits, a hurricane of fury in his words.

Seokmin doesn’t hear what the person in the doorway says. He doesn’t hear if Numen stays or leaves. He doesn’t hear anything else, because as Numen’s wrath shakes the very air in the room, all oxygen spinning out of Seokmin’s reach as it, like everything else, like all light and hope and terror, pulls in tight around Numen’s towering form, Seokmin’s eyes close, his lungs shut down, and, between once second and the next, Seokmin slips from consciousness.

~~~

When Seokmin wakes for the second time in the tower room, he is alone, but he does not stay that way for long.

The door opens only slightly, the crack just large enough to permit the entrance of a wispy figure in a gray cloak.

“Hello, oh, thank goodness,” Seokmin says, sitting up in the bed. He awoke to find himself carefully swaddled in silk and cotton, the expensive-feeling covers sliding smoothly against his skin and stretching out from his position in the middle of the bed to extravagant size. He has never seen a bed so lavishly made up before – nor has he ever been so off put by waking up in a place so comfortable.

The cloaked figure makes no reply, and Seokmin quickly realizes why – it has no mouth. It has no mouth, no eyes, no nose, no _face_, just a dark void dotted with points of light, like miniature stars beneath its cowl … like fireflies trapped in a dark wool jar.

The faceless figure does not speak, but it communicates well enough despite this. It works in the creature’s favor that Seokmin is too terrified to resist as it bullies him out of bed and through a second door that he is absolutely certain did not exist before, into a washroom, and then into the steaming pool set into the floor. The water is warm and soothing, but all too soon the faceless entity – man? Woman? Thing? Seokmin doesn’t want to be rude, and it won’t answer when he asks for a name, so he decides to settle for calling it Quiet Person – ushers him from there as well, with just as much persistent force as it used to get him into the room, and back into the main chamber.

Now, there are clothes laid out on the bed. Seokmin has a bad feeling about this. He turns, hoping to retrieve his own clothing from the washroom, which he forgot as Quiet Person shoved him impatiently along ahead of itself, but finds that the door has vanished. Which is … fine.

So, okay, wherever he is, there is magic afoot. He can work with that. He has read so many books about magic – mostly he looked at the pictures and made up his own stories, but sometimes his sisters would read to him, or his uncle, and he read some for school; he _knows things_ – and he is prepared for this. He’s spent his whole life preparing for this – all those long days in the woods, running and playing where most of the other children dared not go, warned off by parents with wary gleams in their eyes. His own mother tried to do the same, but Seokmin didn’t listen. He never listened.

_The things that live in there would eat you alive._

He hopes she was wrong on that one. She has never been wrong before, in Seokmin’s relatively short life, but. Well. If ever there was a time for hoping.

Quiet Person urges – hassles, demands – Seokmin to get dressed. He doesn’t really want to be naked, so he does, pulling on the clothes with mild trepidation. The pants fit well, the cut nice and the fabric soft. The belt is embossed with delicate little flowers, roses and bluebells and daisies, all forming a continuous thread that connects when he tightens it, the ends overlapping seamlessly. He feels a little less certain about the shirt, once he puts it on and finds that the buttons only go up so far – not nearly far enough – but the material is sturdy and shimmers slightly in the fading sunlight that streams in through the window, like it’s been dusted with diamonds. There are no shoes and his socks are gone, left behind in the disappearing washroom, so his feet are bare, sending shivers up his spine every few steps across the cold floor as Quiet Person herds him out of the room – the door swings open magically when they approach it in a way it most assuredly didn’t when Seokmin tried to open it earlier – and down the hall outside, hurrying him along through a couple more winding passageways until they arrive at what is clearly a dining hall.

Only, it just as clearly _isn’t_, because Seokmin has never in his life seen or heard of any dining hall anywhere that looks like this.

There is a table in the center of the room, yes, long and darkly polished and set with two places, one at either end, but nothing else in the room speaks of breaking bread so much as it does of dragons and their hoards. The walls are set with gemstones, the light they reflect painful to look at as it assaults Seokmin from every angle, catching the periphery of his vision when he tries to look away. Across from the entryway Seokmin came through – one of three doors into the room – the wall is … well, there is no wall. The room drops off into nothing, like the huge window in Seokmin’s room but the effect so much greater, that same swirling silver mist of clouds and light stretching out and down to fill the view while leaving Seokmin with the distinct feeling that it does not actually fill the space at all, its essence insubstantial like dust motes catching sunbeams.

Numen sits at one end of the table, dressed in a formless robe of shimmering light. Seokmin thinks it might be made of diamonds, shining just a shade brighter than Numen’s skin, which also reflects and refracts the light around him. He looks splendid, a god-king of legend and faerie tale.

At the sight of him, Seokmin wants to run, his deepest instincts warning him to be very, very afraid. He listens. At least for the moment, though, he does not run. He is quite certain that in this moment it would not do him any good to try.

“My precious rosebud,” Numen says, gesturing to the empty chair across from him. “Please, sit, my darling, and eat with me.”

Seokmin doesn’t want to make him angry, so he does as he is bid, hurrying into the other seat. At least the entire length of the table is between them. Numen cannot reach him from there … probably. Seokmin has a bad feeling that he has seen only the least of what Numen can do.

The thought is terrifying.

“I know it is the fashion now among mortals to enjoy sweets,” Numen says, either not noticing or ignoring the way Seokmin is huddled in his seat, his shoulders hunched up by his ears, “so I have had a selection of sweet meats and fruits prepared, some of which I am certain you have never tasted before.” He snaps his fingers, the door behind Seokmin opening with a bang that makes him jump. Numen smiles at him. It looks much less charming now than it did in the bedroom, and Seokmin wonders if he is becoming immune to whatever unsettling spell the man had been casting on him before.

He certainly hopes so.

From over Seokmin’s shoulder, a golden tray descends, piled high with candied fruit, sugar-covered nuts, sugarplums, bonbons, and other delicacies Seokmin doesn’t even know how to name. It is a staggering show of wealth – but then, perhaps not in comparison to everything else about this place – but also an odd choice for supper. Seokmin assumes this is supper, anyway; the light out the windows is fading, supplemented in this room by ten enormous chandeliers draped in strands of sapphires and emeralds.

“Um,” Seokmin says, “Maybe something more … substantial, first?”

He looks up, over his shoulder, to address whoever is serving him, and halts, frozen, at the sight.

It isn’t another faceless figure holding the tray; it is a man. It is a young man, tall and thin, his black hair falling in silky waves around his face, his expression so neutral it must be by design but not doing anything to disguise how handsome he is – and he _is_ handsome, exactly the kind of boy Seokmin would stare at when he went to the big cities and was able to people-watch for an hour or two, mesmerized by the great variety of passersby he saw – but none of that is what makes Seokmin pause.

Running vertically across the young man’s face are jagged lines of shiny pink and white, their thickness varying, none perfectly straight but all drawn from brow to chin and extending below that, onto his neck, and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt at his breastbone. The scars are vivid but not new, grisly but somehow separate from the rest of the man’s appearance, as though Seokmin’s brain _knows_ they are not meant to be there and is processing them as a distinct feature from the dark eyes, round nose, and rose-petal lips.

“Take that away for now,” Numen says, breaking Seokmin’s transfixion upon the server as the young man steps away, out of Seokmin’s sight, reappearing moments later with a different tray, this one bearing a variety of meats and cheeses. “Perhaps this is more to your tastes, my dear?” Numen asks, but Seokmin is once again staring at the server.

“Yes,” Seokmin says, his throat tight, his eyes darting across the ruined – no, not ruined, just marked – skin of the server’s face and neck. The server does not look directly at him, but Seokmin feels a kinship, a closeness, with him all the same. Did Numen do this to him? Is this what will happen to Seokmin?

When Seokmin makes no move to take food for himself, the server does it for him, balancing the golden tray in one hand and using the other to serve a selection of foods onto Seokmin’s plate. He stands with his body angled towards Seokmin, leaning slightly in front of his seat, as though to come between Seokmin and Numen. Seokmin cannot say for sure that that is the man’s intent, but it makes him feel safer all the same, even if it is only his own thought.

“Go ahead, sweet one,” Numen commands, the server moving away from Seokmin, almost seeming to float he’s so graceful and silent, over to wait on Numen as well. “Eat up.”

_They will eat you up, my darling boy, the things that live in the woods. They will eat you up._

Seokmin is not hungry, despite the rumble in his stomach, but he spears a bite of a dark meat anyway and lifts it to his lips, not wanting to anger Numen.

It smells heavenly. It tastes even better.

He has never been a picky eater, nor someone with a small appetite, and Seokmin quickly finds himself to be starving after all and sets about demolishing anything and everything that is put in front of him. This ends up being quite a feat, as every time he comes close to emptying his plate, the servant reappears from behind him to give him more, seeming to know which things Seokmin enjoys most and replenishing them while providing a never-ending cycle of new things to replace those Seokmin is not so keen on.

Seokmin has never had food this good in his life, and he has a moment of guilt over the thought, the betrayal of his uncle’s cooking, but even his uncle would readily admit that this is far beyond anything he has ever made, surely. It’s almost unearthly, how good the food is, and all too soon Seokmin is full, unable to eat any more and genuinely disappointed by this fact.

As if reading his mind, the servant removes his plate for him, replacing it with a small dish of what Seokmin can only assume is ice cream. It _looks_ like ice cream, smooth and cold, but he’s never had any before nor even been this close to any when it wasn’t behind a glass storefront, so he can’t be sure until he tries it.

It is. It’s ice cream, and it’s amazing, and he does have room for it after all, his stomach near to bursting when he’s done but it’s so, so worth it.

“So you do have a sweet tooth after all,” Numen says, reminding Seokmin of his presence for the first time in – Seokmin doesn’t know how long they’ve been in this room, actually, how long he’s been eating. He feels stuffed full and stupid, heavy with a good meal, his eyes trying sluggishly to close. Numen chuckles, sending a bolt of uneasiness down Seokmin’s spine to wake him up a little.

He struggles to sit up straight, finding it more difficult than he thinks it should be, his body not wanting to follow his instructions. He blinks heavily at Numen across the table. Numen’s face wavers in the candlelight, sunlight all but gone now, his smile deformed and unsettling.

“I am glad you are enjoying yourself,” Numen says, sounding entertained.

For some reason, this strikes a chord in Seokmin, telling him to _run_, to be wary at the least, and he’s trying, he’s _trying_, but he feels so very warm and heavy he can barely keep his eyes open.

“You were uncertain before, I can understand that,” Numen continues, honeyed and golden, so beautiful as he stands and begins to slowly circle the table towards Seokmin.

He’s gorgeous. Seokmin’s neck is hurting from the strain of looking up at him, his muscles falling lax everywhere else, but he can’t look away, he doesn’t want to look away, he wants to look at Numen forever, he wants to stay with Numen forever.

“Yes, that’s right, little flower,” Numen purrs. His hand is cold, so cold, fracturing Seokmin from the inside out, tiny cracks surely running out from every point of contact with Numen’s splayed fingertips upon his cheek and brow. “Just look at me, my pretty, precious iris,” Numen murmurs, so gently, so pleasantly. “Look at me.”

Seokmin does. He never wants to stop.

Or.

Or – does he?

There is coldness in Seokmin’s stomach, growing stronger by the second, that distracts him from the warmth of Numen’s gaze and forces his vision clear. The fog in his head lifts in increments, and he closes his eyes, pressing his hands over them to block out the noise of light and shimmering, overwhelming attention.

He doesn’t want to look at Numen. Numen is doing something to him, something bad, something dangerous that will rob Seokmin of his will forever if he lets him. He doesn’t know how he knows this but he does know it, he is completely certain of it, and the knowledge is terrifying because now that he has it _he has no idea what to do with it_.

“Seokmin,” Numen says, not sounding so alluring now, sounding cold and hard. “Seokmin, open your eyes. Look at me.”

Seokmin shakes his head, keeping his hands where they are and his eyes tightly closed. He won’t look. He isn’t going to look.

Numen hisses, the sound like a snake but deeper, more guttural, and so much louder. Seokmin cringes back, the sound echoing around him, ringing in his ears.

“Is this your doing?” Numen demands, the question confusing Seokmin – and all the more so when he continues, “Some Aesir trick?”

Seokmin flinches at the sharp sound of someone striking flesh and the answering thud of a body hitting the floor.

He doesn’t want to open his eyes, but he’s afraid, suddenly, not just for himself but for the servant, the one with the long scars and downcast eyes who put his body between Seokmin and Numen, and so he opens them anyway, arms pressed protectively to his chest as he shrinks in on himself.

The servant is on the floor, his head angled down and hair in his face, but the red mark across his cheek is visible all the same. The injury covers most of what Seokmin can see of his face, not restricting itself to the side, but extending up above his eye and across his nose as well. There is no blood, but it looks painful. Seokmin has never seen anyone get hit like that.

His stomach churns and he looks up, looks at Numen, who is burning with anger, almost literally it seems. His hands twitch at his sides and his brow is furrowed, eyes narrowed at the servant at his feet. His skin crackles with what can only be described as lightning, sparks shooting off at random to lance through the air, radiating heat. He lifts his hand as if to strike the prone body again, and Seokmin jerks forward reflexively.

“Stop!” he cries, a stumbling, lurching step out of his seat taking him closer to the other two figures.

Numen pauses and turns his head to stare at him, his long hair whipping frenziedly around the hard planes of his face. The servant does not move at all, frozen on the floor at the feet of this specter of diamond and thunder.

“I –” Seokmin fumbles, his words petering out as soon as they begin. He glances frantically between Numen and the servant with no idea what to say.

Instead, Numen breaks the crystalline silence.

“My darling,” he says, his words like cut glass with sharp edges, “you need not concern yourself with this. How I punish my staff is a paltry matter you have no need to harken to.” He turns his head slightly, then, but keeps his eyes on Seokmin as he calls, “Take Seokmin back to his room; he is tired now.”

Quiet Person begins to approach them from its station by the door Seokmin had entered from. Seokmin looks at it wide-eyed, feeling desperate, and dances away from the folds of the cloak that lift up to grab at him.

“No, wait, I – wait,” he pleads, looking at Numen.

Numen nods, and Quiet Person falls eerily still, as though Numen’s mere whim has rendered it inanimate.

“Wait, I –” Seokmin doesn’t know what to say, what he _can_ say, but he desperately does not want Numen to hurt this servant. He wants to leave this place, to take the servant with him and have Numen leave them _both_ alone, but he knows that isn’t likely to go over well just now – or ever, probably. He doesn’t know what Numen wants from him – Numen said what he wants, told Seokmin in no uncertain terms, but he can’t have meant that, surely, he _can’t have_; Seokmin is open-minded and has never considered himself to _not_ be someone who would, theoretically, be interested in men, but surely this terrifying monster-person cannot actually want Seokmin to _marry him_ – but whatever it is, he does not think Numen is likely to let him go before he gets it. He thinks, chillingly, that Numen is not likely to let him go at all.

“Seokmin,” Numen says, his words still sharp and hard. “My darling flower, why don’t you go to bed. You will feel better in the morning.”

“No, I –”

Why is this so hard? Why is it Seokmin here, instead of someone who could actually handle this? Soonyoung would know what to do. Jeonghan would know how to talk his way out of this. Junhui would charm his way home without even needing to try all that hard; Numen would be eager to do as he asked, like everyone always is, and Seokmin wouldn’t have to be here, trapped and confused and lost and afraid, so afraid, so very, very –

Numen shifts, the sparks flickering across his skin skittering as he slides his foot forward, his gaze falling down to the servant on the floor. Seokmin’s chest seizes up.

“You can’t just bully people like this!” he says, impulsively, his voice ringing out surprisingly loud and firm in the quiet of the dining hall.

Numen turns back to look at him, his expression faintly amused.

Seokmin swallows, cringing back but not letting himself actually retreat. “You –” he hesitates, unsure of where to take this, “you can’t do this. You can’t kidnap me and hypnotize me and force me into marrying you, and you can’t hit him, you can’t do this, you can’t –”

“Can’t I?” Numen asks, the question almost coy the way he says it. There is nothing charming at all about his smile now. “I am a god, Seokmin, a being your pathetic mortal mind cannot even comprehend. If I want you, I shall have you. And so I shall. You will come around with time.”

“I won’t,” Seokmin denies. “You can hurt me –” his voice wavers, but he doesn’t let himself stop, no matter the condescending, predatory look in Numen’s burning sunlight eyes “– but I won’t.”

Numen coos, turning to face him completely now, the servant forgotten as he fixes his full attention upon Seokmin. Seokmin is relieved that he isn’t looming over the poor servant anymore, but he is terrified by the way Numen is looking at him. He takes a shuffling step backwards as Numen paces forward, failing to keep the distance between them, and Numen all too quickly reaches out and slides his hand behind Seokmin’s head, forcing him to stop retreating and to look him in the eye as Numen holds his head rigidly in place.

“My most precious rose,” Numen murmurs, dipping his head low to meet Seokmin’s eyes nearly on his level, “I would never hurt you. You will be mine, but you will beg me for the honor before it comes. I promise you.”

“I will never want that,” Seokmin whispers, wondering if this is bravery or stupidity. He has never been able to properly distinguish between the two.

Numen’s fingers flex against the back of his neck and a chill seeps into Seokmin’s bones. The god’s expression is frigid, his smile showing all his teeth, pointed and razor-sharp like a predator. At the point of contact, Seokmin’s neck begins to ache, then to sting, then to burn. He flinches, trying to duck away, but he can’t. He whimpers, ashamed of the sound but unable to hold it in; he squeezes his eyes closed, mouth trembling. In the next instant, the pain is gone, and, when Seokmin’s eyes open, Numen’s smile has lost its manic edge.

“You will learn your place, my dear,” Numen says mildly, his fingers rubbing gently at Seokmin’s neck; it stings like it did before, like miniscule shards of glass being pressed into his skin, but it does not burn. “And, in time,” he adds quietly, “you will learn to love it.”

Then Numen steps away, his hand brushing through Seokmin’s hair and drawing one last shiver from him. He glances briefly at the servant, who has not moved at all, not even to breathe, Seokmin thinks, worriedly, looking at him as well. Fortunately, though, Numen makes no move to strike him again, instead passing his prone form and crossing the length of the room in quick strides to reach the door behind his chair.

“I will see you in the morning, my flower,” he calls, looking over his shoulder as the door swings open in front of him. “I hope you will have a more grateful perspective then.”

He does not wait for a reply, which is fortunate because Seokmin does not have one in him. He has done quite enough mouthing off to actual gods – and oh, that’s bad, if Numen really is a god, that is so bad, so, so, so, _so_ bad – for one evening.

His hands are shaking, he realizes as he looks down, and it almost makes him laugh. He doesn’t know why. He chokes down the sound, not letting it out, just in case vocalizing it – vocalizing anything – makes him cry. He feels like he might cry.

The servant shifts, making Seokmin jump and look at him. He does not meet Seokmin’s eyes as he stands, straightening up slowly to his full height, his shoulders back and chin held high. He is slightly taller than Seokmin is, he can now see, and the lines of him are even more graceful and fluid than Seokmin first thought. He looks regal, even with the bruise on his face, the scars under it.

Seokmin wonders what Aesir means. Numen must have been talking to the servant when he said that; it is a word Seokmin has never heard before. It sounds like this servant looks.

“Socius, would you see our guest to his room, please?” the servant says, directing the request to Quiet Person. His voice matches the rest of him – Seokmin does not know where his accent is from, but it sounds like that word again. _Aesir_.

Quiet Person – or, Socius, apparently – steps forward, brought to life again by the servant’s words, and extends a cloak-shrouded arm in the direction of the door Seokmin entered through before supper. This time, Socius does not attempt to manhandle Seokmin, and Seokmin takes the opportunity to linger, wanting some answers and hoping that this servant will be more reasonable than Numen is. He has no reason to fear the servant, at least, which already makes him much more appealing to talk to than the person who kidnapped and tried to hypnotize him.

“What’s your name?” he asks first, politely.

The servant stares at him. “I do not think we should address each other by name,” he says quietly. “It will only breed attachment.”

Seokmin feels his friendly expression falter, hurt by the rejection. “Shouldn’t we band together, though?” he asks hesitantly. “We are in the same boat, aren’t we?”

“We are not,” the servant says bluntly. He gestures toward Socius. “Please, go with Socius. You will be safe in your room.”

“I – oh,” Seokmin stops short as the servant turns and walks away, disappearing through the third door, the one behind Seokmin’s supper chair. Socius stands patiently, waiting for Seokmin to follow it – him? Her? He doesn’t like calling Socius “it” now that it has a name: names are for people, and people aren’t its.

“Socius, are you a person?” Seokmin feels stupid for asking, but he doesn’t know how else to find out.

Socius shakes its head.

Seokmin startles. “Oh. Are you – _not_ a person?”

Socius nods.

“Is Socius your real name?”

Socius shakes its head.

“What _is_ your real name?”

Again, Socius shakes its head.

Seokmin frowns. Socius beckons for Seokmin to follow it, so Seokmin does, still puzzling over the response. “You – do you not have a name?” he asks, feeling clever when Socius nods. “And can you only answer yes or no questions?”

Socius nods.

“Okay,” Seokmin says, mostly to himself. Socius is probably magical, then, if it isn’t an actual person – and that should have been obvious, with the night sky facelessness and everything, but Seokmin doesn’t like to assume – which means that Socius is probably enchanted to _not_ help Seokmin escape. That would be logical, he’s pretty sure.

He wishes Jeonghan were here. Or Wonwoo. Jihoon always has a way around things; he’d get out of here in no time, but it’s just Seokmin so he’s stuck here, maybe forever, and maybe he’ll die here, maybe he’ll never get out.

Maybe he’ll never get to go home. Never see his family again. Never get to marry anybody for real, forced to wed some crazy god and live in his magical tower for the rest of his life.

Seokmin wipes at the tears on his cheeks, impatient with himself. He doesn’t have time to cry; there’s no point to it. He needs to figure out a way to escape, since now he knows that Numen is serious about marrying him _and_ is very dangerous _and_ Seokmin is _completely alone_ –

He sucks in a sharp breath, pressing down on the sob in his chest. He shoves the heels of his hands into his eyes but it doesn’t help much.

When Socius touches his arm, he jumps, jerking his hands away from his face, to find them back at the room he started this nightmare in.

He doesn’t want to go inside.

Maybe he doesn’t have to.

“Socius,” he says, slowly, “Are the four of us the only people in the tower – you, me, Numen, and that servant?”

Socius nods.

“Okay,” Seokmin says quietly. He looks up, staring into Socius’ faceless void. “Thank you, Socius. I’m at my room now. You can go.”

He almost didn’t expect for it to work, didn’t expect his orders to be followed like Numen and the servant’s were, but, miraculously, it does work. Socius turns and walks away immediately, disappearing down the hall without hesitation.

Maybe Seokmin isn’t hopeless after all.

He still wishes Jeonghan were here, though. Or Seungcheol. Or Seungkwan. Or Chan or Hansol or –

He doesn’t want to be here anymore, so he leaves. He hurries, not quite running, down the hall in the opposite direction from the way Socius went, having no idea where he’s going, just knowing that he won’t be _here_ once he gets there. And that, for this moment, is enough.

~~~

He finds the top of the tower. The door leading onto it, strangely, is in the wall like a regular door, but when he opens it and steps through he is suddenly standing on the edge of a wide, circular space with nothing above or around it, just emptily shimmering darkness broken by strands of silvery clouds. It is disconcerting, but he is too relieved to be out, after what felt like hours of running, of the maze of hallways that makes up most of the tower, to go back now. And besides, he isn’t sure he can; the door vanishes behind him as soon as he crosses the threshold onto the roof, so he has no choice but to pace farther out across the sparkling floor.

When he sees who else has found their way here, he does not know if he should be glad of the company or uneasy of its nature. He cannot deny that he’s lonely – more than ever after his futile attempt to find anything even resembling a way out of the tower – but the servant made it very clear that they are not friends, will not become friends, and should not act like friends. Being near him may just make Seokmin even lonelier, but it isn’t as though he can leave now.

He approaches the servant hesitantly, still not quite sure which course of action he should take even as his feet lead him towards the other man. It is strange that the servant has not noticed him; Seokmin has never been quiet in anything, even walking. Once he gets close, though, he realizes why the servant has not acknowledged his presence yet.

The servant’s eyes, previously dark, are golden, open unseeingly and staring at nothing. He is sitting cross-legged, his hands on his thighs, clearly meditating.

Seokmin shrinks away, not wanting to disturb him. It seems he got too close, though, because, before he can retreat, the servant’s eyes blink back to brown, still hazy for a moment, and then focus on Seokmin as he turns his head to see who has interrupted him.

Seokmin smiles nervously and waves at him, not sure what else to do and panicking, his body held awkwardly between footsteps, one foot extended behind him.

Surprisingly, the servant huffs a laugh, the wind tossing his hair around his darkened eyes, and Seokmin has a flash of hope that maybe he isn’t so unwanted after all.

“I see you found my solace,” the servant says, his voice soft but carrying to Seokmin easily in the still night air.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Seokmin apologizes. He straightens out his stance, shifting awkwardly to one foot. “You can ignore me. I’ll just be … over here.” He motions to the other side of the rooftop, already moving in that direction, hoping that they can just … be in each other’s presence – that _he_ can be in _someone’s_ company, not be alone, just for a while – and that this won’t be too much to ask.

Apparently, though, it is.

“No, I’ll leave,” the servant says, getting smoothly to his feet. He nods at Seokmin and walks by him, graceful and quick-footed, almost gone before Seokmin can say another word.

Seokmin wants to ask him to stay, even if he won’t, wants to try, but his tongue gets twisted up around the words, his throat suddenly dry. He doesn’t want to be alone.

_He doesn’t want to be alone._

Behind him, the servant’s footsteps stop. Seokmin bites his lip, realizing he’s kind of crying again, just a little. He swipes at his eyes, smothers the noises that want to leave him.

There is a sigh, soft but distinct from the wind around them, and Seokmin tenses.

He tries harder to keep quiet, not wanting to make the servant angry, even as the tears come faster, the sting of rejection sharp after everything else today. This servant may not want to become _attached_ to Seokmin, but he is the only other person in this tower with Seokmin who isn’t his crazed kidnapper or a magical cape that can’t actually hold a real conversation. Seokmin doesn’t want to be alone. He hates being alone, he’s never coped well when he is, and now he is and he just – he just –

“Okay, okay, alright,” that soft voice says, a note of defeat in it. “Why don’t we sit down?”

Seokmin sniffles, looking up to find the servant standing in front of him, even though he didn’t hear him move. He doesn’t look angry, but he doesn’t look happy either. Seokmin’s loneliness wars with his need to not make a nuisance of himself. The latter wins.

“No, I’m sorry, just ignore me, I’m fine.” He smiles, knowing it’s a bit watery, tears running down his face, but hoping the servant will take it at face value anyway.

The servant shakes his head. “No, _I’m_ sorry,” he says emphatically. “I wanted – never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m too weak to hold to it anyway. Come on, sit with me.” He reaches out, like he’s going to take Seokmin’s hand, but he stops himself just short.

Seokmin closes the distance without thought, feeling an overwhelming swell of relief come over him the second their fingers lock together.

Not alone.

The servant’s face flickers through several complicated emotions, too fast and the night too dark for Seokmin to parse them, and then he pulls Seokmin’s hand gently, leading them over to the edge where he was sitting when Seokmin found him. Seokmin goes willingly, trying not to press too close and scare his companion away. The servant seems unperturbed, though, settling with his legs hanging over the edge and, when Seokmin sits beside him with his knees folded to his chest, not brave enough to follow his example, he pulls Seokmin closer against his side.

Seokmin lets out a deep breath, his body relaxing as he leans in, only now realizing how tightly wound he was. He doesn’t even know this person, but the closeness is comfort all the same.

“I said I wouldn’t do this again,” the servant mutters, softly enough that Seokmin thinks maybe the words are not for his benefit. The servant sighs again, then, and closes his eyes. He looks even more regal up here, in the dim and iridescent night around them. The red mark on his face is visible even in the mostly-dark, out of place on someone so elegant and kind. “Minghao,” he says, very quietly, the wind whipping up suddenly and almost carrying the word away.

Seokmin licks his lips. “Minghao,” he says, trying it out as his eyes trace the lines of Minghao’s face, both natural and those torn across it. It’s a beautiful name. “I’m Seokmin.”

“I know,” Minghao says. “You’re difficult to miss.”

“Are you – I mean, do you live here with him?” He can’t imagine why Minghao would, if he has a choice. But then, Seokmin doesn’t have a choice; maybe Minghao doesn’t either.

Minghao shrugs, his eyes still closed. “If you can call it living,” he says.

Seokmin waits a minute for him to say more, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to. The silence makes Seokmin jumpy, so he breaks it before the itch can settle under his skin.

“How long have you been here?” he asks next, watching Minghao, the way he tilts his head back as the wind comes across them again, harsh and cold. Seokmin shivers. Minghao wraps his arm more securely around him, saying nothing when Seokmin turns and presses his face against his neck.

“I don’t know,” Minghao says, his voice soothing, mixing with the beating of Seokmin’s heart and the breeze that keeps up a steady whistle. “A while. My kind lives longer than yours does, though I’m not sure I count as one of them anymore. Time moves differently here, as well. I’ve been here probably as long as you’ve been alive, I’d say – maybe longer.”

That is … a very long time. Seokmin cannot imagine being here for more than twenty years, living in constant fear of Numen, no one to talk to but an enchanted cloak.

He can hardly imagine anything lonelier.

Feeling a rush of commonality with Minghao, he pushes closer, lifting his face to see Minghao again but wrapping his own arm around Minghao’s waist, his hand sliding against Minghao’s back and side as he reaches. He feels something there, startling him: a rough patch of skin. Minghao shudders when he touches it, arching away, then settling back into their shared space when Seokmin’s hand comes to rest outside of his shirt at his side.

He shouldn’t ask. Minghao is already being so nice to him, and Seokmin doesn’t want to dredge up bad memories. If Minghao has scars on his back, they probably came from Numen too, and Seokmin doesn’t need to hear about it.

He’s just grateful for the company.

“Are you tired, Seokmin?” Minghao asks suddenly. He glances at Seokmin sidelong, and, as if cued, Seokmin yawns.

Seokmin’s eyes widen, surprised himself that the answer is apparently yes. Minghao smiles at him, and oh –

Now that’s a smile Seokmin doesn’t mind being dumbfounded by, the feeling coming not from a hazy place in his mind, put there by someone else, but from a place in his chest that catches on the way Minghao’s eyes light up brighter and darker than the restless sky around them, on the way he’s smiling at Seokmin like he’s fond, not like he’s tricking him or winning a game Seokmin didn’t mean to be playing. Seokmin likes to smile and to be smiled at; he has been on the receiving end of many, and he feels confident in assessing that Minghao has a very, very nice smile.

“You must be tired,” Minghao says, mild amusement in his voice. “You’re staring at me.”

“You’re good to stare at,” Seokmin tells him, feeling embarrassed immediately. He must be more tired than he thought.

Minghao doesn’t laugh at him, though; he stands up, tugging on Seokmin’s arm to get him to join him, and says, “You should sleep before you get any loopier; Numen’s magic can have strange effects on people. Saying silly things is pretty normal.”

Seokmin gets to his feet, swaying into Minghao as soon as he’s upright. It’s alarming how exhausted he suddenly feels, as if the entire day has caught up to him at once. He blinks, and they are suddenly on the other side of the roof. Again, and they are back in the winding corridors of the tower. Again, and they are in another corridor, probably going back to Seokmin’s room, where he really, really doesn’t want to go.

He plants his feet, stumbling as Minghao brings them both to a stop, supporting most of Seokmin’s weight easily.

“I don’t want to sleep there,” Seokmin says, having some difficulty getting all the words out. “I don’t want to go back there.”

“Then we won’t,” Minghao agrees. “You can sleep with me; Numen will never know if we don’t tell him.”

Seokmin stares at Minghao, whose face is cast in shadow now, the meager candlelight doing little to light the dark hallway but throwing his scars into relief all the same. Numen would probably be angry if he found out that Seokmin slept in Minghao’s room instead of his own, but Minghao is letting him anyway. He’s risking getting hurt again – Seokmin’s eyes track to the growing bruise on his face – for Seokmin’s sake.

“Thank you,” he says. It isn’t big enough, but there isn’t anything bigger he can think of that would express what he means, exactly. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for letting me hold your hand. Thank you for telling me your name. Thank you for not leaving me alone.

Minghao frowns at him. He looks conflicted, something twisting in his dark eyes that Seokmin cannot even begin to read. Then he shakes his head and pulls Seokmin on, and Seokmin lets him.

Minghao’s room is much smaller than Seokmin’s, smaller even than Seokmin’s bedroom at home was in their old farmhouse, not even big enough to fit a real bed. It holds a small wooden box tucked in the corner and a bedroll, threadbare over a pile of straw, taking up most of the room.

“It won’t be as comfortable as your room,” Minghao says, not quite sounding apologetic but sounding … something. “Numen makes sure of it.”

“Why does he make you stay here if he hates you?” Seokmin asks, eyeing the room. He wonders if the bed has fleas in it. It seems rude to ask, and it isn’t like he’s going to leave even if the answer is yes, so he doesn’t vocalize the question.

“He has his reasons,” Minghao says. “I don’t have a washbasin in here, sorry; I use the well in the mornings.”

“That’s fine, I’m not really used to fanciness anyway,” Seokmin assures him. Minghao’s mouth twitches into a smile at that, and Seokmin feels accomplished.

Then Minghao turns around and takes off his shirt.

“Oh my –” Seokmin slaps a hand over his mouth, horrified and doubly horrified by his own reaction.

Minghao looks at him over his shoulder, seemingly unbothered by Seokmin’s reaction. “I know you felt them on the roof; I thought you might as well see, so you don’t wonder.”

Seokmin glances at his face, trying not to look at his exposed skin even as his eyes are drawn there, feeling vaguely nauseous but also disturbingly intrigued. Minghao nods at him, encouraging, so Seokmin lifts a hand, hesitating, waiting for a second nod of affirmation, and then he touches.

The scars are so much worse than Seokmin imagined them. He thought they might be like the ones on Minghao’s face, lines of gruesome but comprehensible violence. This, though, this is … this looks like torture. Seokmin has never seen torture firsthand, hopes he never does, has never met anyone who has been tortured and never thought he would, but that is all he can think this is.

Minghao’s back has been sundered in two, twin mounds of twisted, scarred, blackened flesh beginning at each shoulder blade and extending down, spreading out, all the way to his lower back. His skin is mottled at the edges of the scars, pale and dark spots mingling, some areas looking red as fresh blood though these wounds are clearly very old. The scarring is less dense the farther down his back it goes, but even at the bottom it is worse than anything Seokmin ever saw on the farm or in the city. Even the parts of Minghao’s back that are not taken up by these two massive scars are not untouched, dozens of smaller, more normal-looking wounds flecked around the larger ones, their lines sharp and clean, like incisions made by a surgeon’s knife.

It is horrifying. Seokmin has seen a great deal to be horrified by today, but this is by far the worst of it. He feels as though he may be sick. And, through it all, as Seokmin’s world spins around him at the cruelty on display before him, Minghao stands patient and calm, staring dead ahead at the wall in front of him.

“Is this what he’s going to do to me?” Seokmin asks, his voice small. It’s a selfish question, a frightened question, but he can’t help asking it, the thought building bigger and bigger in his mind as his fingers skim across the wasteland that once was Minghao’s skin. The texture is coarse, like batter thoroughly burned onto the bottom of a pan.

“You wouldn’t survive it if he did,” Minghao says, voice gone flat and hollow. “Fortunately, he can’t. Not to you.”

“What did he do?” Seokmin asks, not wanting to know, the question coming out anyway. He doesn’t think he can stand to hear anything that it is worse than what he’s thinking of.

Minghao is quiet for a moment, his shoulders tensing just a little. When he speaks, there is pain in his voice that Seokmin knows he could never begin to understand. “Aesir have wings,” he says, so softly, the words sounding damning in the quiet. “And now I don’t.”

Aesir. That word again, something Minghao is, or was, or – it is something that pains Minghao, clearly, and so Seokmin doesn’t want to hear any more about it.

Hesitantly, fearing to misstep, wanting to help, Seokmin presses his palm flat against Minghao’s scar, his hand not quite spanning the length of one of them. Minghao shudders, but he leans back instead of away, so Seokmin steps forward and hugs him, pressing his entire front to Minghao’s exposed back, covering up what was done to him.

Minghao lets him stay there for a long moment, both of them breathing together, no other sound daring to disturb them, before he pulls against Seokmin’s hold. Seokmin lets him go immediately, stepping back, blinking furiously against the new tears that want to fall, not for himself this time but for Minghao.

“We should sleep,” Minghao says, looking down. “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just thought that you should know now what kind of man Numen is, what he’s capable of, so you don’t underestimate him.”

“He isn’t a man, he’s a monster,” Seokmin corrects him, scrubbing at his face. “He’s a – a – a _monster_. No _person_ would do that to someone. No one.”

“You haven’t seen very much of the world, have you?” Minghao asks, sounding not quite condescending but something approaching it, the same tone Jeonghan uses when Seokmin messes up an order he’s completed a hundred times before – fond but chiding, the voice of someone with experience who finds Seokmin’s own lack of such endearing.

Seokmin wants to tell Minghao that he’s seen a lot of the world, actually, just not those parts of it, not the parts that would do that to someone. He’s avoided those parts deliberately; why go to those places when he could be making people happy instead? He likes to smile, he likes to help, he likes to believe the world is a good place. He doesn’t want to see it for its ugliness; he wants to see it for its beauty, and for the beautiful people in it.

But he does know there is ugliness in the world. He knows. No one can escape it entirely.

Minghao doesn’t need him to say that, though, so he doesn’t. He says nothing as Minghao pulls his shirt back on, as he closes the door against the flickering candlelight in the hall, as they both settle down on the thin mattress together, pressed close because there is no choice in such a confined space and because Seokmin _wants_ to be close and Minghao isn’t stopping him. Maybe Minghao wants to be close, too. Minghao has been alone for a long time; maybe Seokmin can be a good thing for him, if he has to be here at all.

A thought nags at Seokmin in the dark, though, something Minghao said on the roof.

“Minghao?” he whispers, not wanting to wake him if he’s asleep.

From over Seokmin’s shoulder, lying against his back, Minghao hums. “Yes?”

Seokmin shifts, trying to see Minghao’s face and then quickly giving up; it’s too dark anyway, even if he did manage to roll over. “What did you mean on the roof, when you said it’s normal to have weird reactions to Numen’s magic?” He fidgets, restless, when Minghao doesn’t respond right away. “Minghao,” he says, slightly louder, “am I the first person Numen has kidnapped?”

He feels the top of Minghao’s head press between his shoulder blades, his arm, draped over Seokmin’s side for convenience and comfort both, tightening.

“No, you are not the first,” he breathes out, his breath warm on Seokmin’s back though the words are chilling.

Seokmin nods, accepting that. He didn’t think he was, once the thought occurred to him. It makes sense there have been others. Minghao has been here for over twenty years; who knows how many people Numen has kidnapped in that time? The more important question is:

“What happened to the others?”

He doesn’t expect Minghao to lie to him. He also doesn’t expect Minghao to be quite so honest.

“They’re dead, Seokmin,” Minghao says into the quiet dark of the room. “He killed them. Always. Every single time, as soon as he got the slightest bit bored, he killed them.”

Seokmin shudders, grabbing at Minghao’s hand. Minghao holds his hand back, lacing their fingers together, holding on as tightly as Seokmin is. Seokmin wonders if Minghao knew the others. As Minghao wraps more firmly around him, his breathing rough in Seokmin’s ear, Seokmin thinks the answer is yes.

And one day, who knows how soon, Seokmin is going to die too.

“But we – it doesn’t have to be like that,” Minghao whispers, barely more than an exhale, the words taking a moment to register. He shifts closer, bringing their joined hands up to turn Seokmin’s head, pressing his lips nearly against Seokmin’s ear and dropping his voice even further as though afraid of being overheard by the darkness itself. “Seokmin, he didn’t get you today,” he whispers, so softly Seokmin can barely hear him, even this close. “We have a chance. We have a chance, if you can just hold on. It all depends on you, but if you can hold on against him, there is hope.”

“There is?” Seokmin asks, trying to be just as quiet, not quite succeeding but Minghao doesn’t seem to mind, his grip tightening as the excitement builds in his voice.

“There is,” he confirms. “It all relies on you, though. You have to hold out, and the other part – Seokmin, can you read?”

Seokmin feels almost offended, but he squashes it down. Minghao must mean something by the question. “Yes, of course I can,” he whispers back. “Does that matter?”

“Why, yes it does,” Minghao murmurs, dipping his head to rest against Seokmin’s shoulder. He laughs, lightly, more a puff of air on Seokmin’s skin than anything else, and he shakes his head. “Seokmin, that matters more than I can say.”

Seokmin isn’t sure what’s going on, what’s going to happen, but he feels bolstered by Minghao’s joy and hope, by Minghao’s arm around him. He’s still exhausted from everything that happened today, nothing now to distract him from the pull of sleep, and he lets his eyes close to the sound of Minghao’s breathing, close and warm behind him.

Tomorrow, he will find out why it is so important that he knows how to read. Tomorrow, he will have to face Numen again, probably. Tomorrow is a long ways away, though.

His mind is dragged down, hazing over naturally, and he lets it happen.

The last thing he is aware of is Minghao’s heartbeat, steady against his back, finding the same rhythm as his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be complete, art needs to be seen, experienced, witnessed. So – thank you for reading my fic. I’d love it if you left a comment so I know you engaged with it, because that truly is the goal of every written work – to be engaged with – and it’s always wonderfully gratifying and vitalizing to get confirmation of that from the reader.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter is where the most graphic torture/abuse/violence happens. The line “Play along.” is about where it starts ramping up, so if you don’t wanna see that you can skip from there to the last few paragraphs of the chapter and you'll still know everything super important to the plot that happens without reading that stuff. All tags apply to the fic as a whole, though, please be aware, and this fic has disturbing content throughout, so skipping that one section does not, by any means, make this chapter or this fic clean.

Minghao’s plan, as it turns out, the plan to get them both out of the tower and away from Numen, essentially amounts to Seokmin breaking into Numen’s private study and stealing from him. It isn’t exactly breaking in, since Numen hasn’t barred Seokmin from entering the room, but he has locked Minghao out, some kind of magic keeping him from crossing the threshold, and the implication is that he doesn’t want people in his study if they’re going to plot against him.

This is exactly why Seokmin has to be the one to do it, Minghao told him, whispering the proposal into his ear beneath the cover of running water while they used the well in the dark of the lingering night. Numen does not yet suspect Seokmin of being _capable_ of working to harm him, so Seokmin has an unfiltered access to places – and the privilege of a relative absence of scrutiny – that Minghao lacks.

This is how Seokmin finds himself standing just outside the doorway of Numen’s library, biting his lip, staring at the red velvet room beyond the threshold.

Minghao isn’t here, off attending to his duties so as not to raise suspicion, but he said that Seokmin should have at least an hour before Numen is back from wherever he goes in the early mornings. That was nearly half an hour ago, and Seokmin has spent most of that time standing exactly here, watching dust motes float from ceiling to floor in the building sunlight and tracking the changing patterns of light cast across the carpet by the assortment of crystals and trinkets hanging in the windows of the study.

He knows he needs to go in. He can’t stay here, in the tower, waiting for Numen to hypnotize him again, and Minghao said this is their only chance. They only have a chance at all because Seokmin has held out against Numen for this long, and there’s no telling how much longer he can manage it. Seokmin doesn’t even know how he’s managed it for this long, and he dreads having to face the demigod again.

All he has to do is step over the threshold, cross the room, find the book Minghao told him about, take it, and bring it to Minghao. Minghao will know what to do from there; Seokmin’s part in this will be done, and he can leave their escape in the much more capable hands of someone who isn’t him.

That is all he has to do. Just walk forward, take the book, walk back. He can do this – he _has to_.

The clock on the mantle indicates half past seven, reminding Seokmin of exactly how little time he has. He doesn’t know how long it will take him to find the book he needs, either; Minghao said it would _call him_, but Seokmin isn’t sure. Seokmin didn’t believe magic was even real until yesterday, so he has little faith in his own ability to use it. The lingering warmth where Minghao touched his forehead is probably just his imagination, not the spell Minghao said it was, and Seokmin will have to find the book by eye – if he can.

Seven thirty-eight, now, the clock reads, and Seokmin draws in a steadying breath. He is running out of time, and if he doesn’t do this today then he might not have another chance; when Numen comes back, he will try to mind-control Seokmin again, and by this time tomorrow Seokmin may have forgotten he ever wanted to stop him at all.

Okay, he has to do this now.

He takes another deep breath, and then another, then another, trying to psych himself up. When that doesn’t work, he closes his eyes, opting for the opposite approach: not thinking.

Eyes shut, Seokmin licks his lips and steps forward, deliberately not thinking about the magical boundary he’s supposedly crossing or the way Minghao said the enchantment bubbles beneath his skin like acid when he gets too close.

His foot comes down on carpet, and Seokmin’s skin feels fine.

He peeks his eyes open, darting his gaze around himself nervously. He’s over the threshold, and nothing bad has happened to him. No magic alarm has been raised, no pain flares across his skin; Numen does not descend from the ceiling, or come crashing through the windows, or come storming in behind Seokmin, to accost him.

The only sound is the ticking of the clock, wearing away the minutes Seokmin has to finish this.

Feeling slightly emboldened by the lack of catastrophe that has so far befallen him, Seokmin steps farther into the room, looking around more openly, taking in the lay of the space.

Every wall is lined with bookshelves, windows set into the walls behind them, pouring light into the room. There is no glass in the windows, but no wind comes through them, some kind of invisible barrier keeping it at bay and also holding in place the many glittering baubles that hang in the empty space. The carpet and upholstery are all red, luxurious velvet, playing prettily off the dark wood of the bookcases and the desk that sits at the far end of the room.

There are so many books in here there is no way Seokmin will ever be able to find the one he needs. Every single one is leather-bound and thick, spines identical except for the variations in color that range through every shade Seokmin has ever seen and a few that seem to shift even as he looks at them. His heart sinks, anxiety building again as he surveys the room.

He will never get out of here, he realizes, staring blankly at the rows and rows and rows of books around him. If one of these books is the key to his jail cell, every other one is a nearly identical key, each indistinguishable to his own limited perception from the only one Seokmin needs to free himself.

His eyes rove helplessly over the shelves, tracing words that mostly don’t seem to be written in any human language on their spines, mind spinning with the enormity of his own powerlessness.

And then, it stops.

In his mind, something pulls taut, stopping Seokmin short with his eyes fixed on one book, near the top of a bookcase behind the desk. When he blinks and takes a step forward, that connection grows hot, somehow, inside his head, and as it does a voice says, very firmly:

_There._

Seokmin follows the magic – it must be magic, it must be the spell Minghao told him about, and the thrill of that makes his steps light with giddiness – over to the bookshelf, staring up at the book that is, just as Minghao said it would, _calling to him_.

The book is blue, pale to the point of nearly being white, and dull with age. It does not shimmer or glow the way so many of the other books here do, it simply sits, looking very old and somehow regal among its lesser peers. The writing on it is not language at all to Seokmin’s eyes, but he knows what it says – Minghao told him, and the words are whispered in his head now as he stares at it.

_The Aesirya: Outward-Facing, Volume Two._

This is the key not only to his cell, but to the entire prison.

Seokmin reaches for it, but he cannot reach. He frowns, glancing over the lower shelves, looking for a foothold, but they are all stuffed full. When he looks away, the magic in his head disappears, and he jerks his head up in alarm, seeking the book again.

It’s there, and his eyes find it easily, but there is no magic pull now. Whatever Minghao gifted him with, it is gone.

Seokmin is alone.

The clock says seven fifty-three, ticking mercilessly toward the hour Minghao says Numen always returns, his punctuality perfect. He needs to get the book and get out in seven minutes, or he will, in all likelihood, never get out at all.

He glances around, feeling frantic, looking for a chair he can pull over. But Minghao told him not to disturb anything else in the study; he said Numen will know. Minghao gave him something to put on the shelf in the book’s stead, but he prepared nothing to hide Seokmin’s presence in the room; that, he said, Seokmin would have to ensure himself.

The desk isn’t all that far away. Seokmin eyes it, then the distance between it and the bookshelf. He can probably reach that far.

He climbs up onto the desk, feet sticking a little to the polished wood – he’s sweating, and his feet are bare; he’ll have to make sure not to leave smudges. When he turns, one hand balancing him against the nearest bookcase, he sets his sights on the book he needs, still waiting patiently for him. It’s a reach, the shelf it’s on a full bookcase away from the edge of the desk, and Seokmin’s tongue darts out, catching between his teeth as he focuses on keeping his balance and stretching just that little bit farther.

His foot slips, knocking into a glass orb on its bronze pedestal, and Seokmin barely catches himself before he falls.

The glass orb does fall, rolling smoothly off the edge of the desk and onto the carpet, traveling quickly out of sight. Seokmin watches it, breath caught, eyes wide as it disappears beneath one of the long velvet couches. His eyes flicker towards the mantel.

Seven fifty-six.

He turns his focus back to the book, fixing it in his mind to put the glass ball back before he leaves. He has to get up on his toes, one hand clinging to the frame of a bookcase while the fingers of his other scrabble against the spines of the book next to the one he needs.

Just a little bit farther – just a – just –

_There_.

He laughs, grin stretching across his face, as he pries the book out of its resting place, throwing his weight back once he has it. The book is heavy, almost too heavy to carry with one hand, and the texture of it is surprisingly smooth. Its binding is tight and its skin looks rough, but touching it feels more like touching water than leather. How strange.

Looking at it from this close, holding it in his hands, the same warmth he felt when he first caught sight of it steals over him, only for a moment, filling him with a glowing, burning sense of approval – magic made pleased.

It is an exhilarating feeling.

He barely remembers to put Minghao’s charm into the empty space, throwing a glance at the clock – seven fifty-nine – as he does, then jumping to the floor with his heart in his mouth. He rubs his sleeve furiously against the desk, erasing any trace of his trespass, and runs out of the room, heaving himself across the threshold just as the clock strikes eight.

From somewhere else in the tower, he hears Numen’s booming voice, words indistinguishable, as he announces his return.

Seokmin smiles, warmth rising in him again, but this time not from a spell, simply from his own victory, his own success in this first step of his escape.

He clutches the book to his chest, letting out a shuddering breath, and steals it away to begin plotting what lies left to do in Numen’s downfall.

~~~

“You did incredibly, Seokmin,” Minghao says, the words burning gold in Seokmin’s chest. It feels better than the magic or even Seokmin’s own pride did. Minghao’s smile is wide, disbelief shining in his eyes as he holds the book in his lap, fingertips tracing over the cover like something sacred.

“I just did what you told me,” Seokmin says, shy but pleased by the praise. He ducks his head when Minghao looks up at him, leaning into Minghao’s shoulder.

“You did so much more than that,” Minghao says. His hand finds Seokmin’s, tangling their fingers together in Seokmin’s lap and squeezing. Minghao laughs – _giggles_ – high and ringing in the evening air, and Seokmin wants to live in that sound. “Seokmin,” Minghao says, happily, but so seriously, holding Seokmin’s gaze, “you just saved us both.”

The inside of Seokmin’s chest is an inferno, stoked by the wonder and gratitude in Minghao’s eyes, raging out of control as he stares, enraptured, at the way the shimmering void around them reflects off their dark surfaces.

Minghao looks down first, still smiling, the hand that is not holding Seokmin’s running the breadth of the book’s cover and then cracking it open with a little noise of anticipation that Seokmin swallows with his next inhale.

Minghao’s approval is so heady, and his joy even more so. He wonders if it’s an Aesir thing or just a Minghao thing. He doesn’t particularly care either way.

Everyone Seokmin has ever known has accused him of wearing his heart on his sleeve, of being too quick to love and trust both, but he doesn’t think that’s all this is. Sure, that’s probably part of it, but there is something between him and Minghao, he’s sure of it, that goes deeper than their shared circumstances.

When he looks at Minghao, he feels _safe_ and _warm_ and _happy_. He feels like Minghao has known him all his life, sees right through him to the parts that even Seokmin doesn’t know about, and he feels as if he’s known Minghao just as long – not literally, but somewhere deeper than that. Minghao believed that he could get the book from Numen’s study, put all his faith in Seokmin to not ruin this and get them both in trouble, when Seokmin himself doubted his own ability.

Minghao makes him feel like he can do _anything_, and Seokmin might be slightly high on the rush of the trust in Minghao’s eyes.

“You said you can read, right?” Minghao asks, drawing Seokmin’s attention back to him, to his actual presence sitting next to Seokmin on the edge of the top of the tower, huddled together in the fading light many, many hours after Seokmin’s daring adventure.

Seokmin nods, then glances down at the page Minghao has opened the book to. He immediately makes a face, mouth twisting with consternation.

“Um, Minghao –”

“No, don’t worry,” Minghao says, shaking his head. “I can teach you Aesira with magic.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just read it?” Seokmin asks. This is the part he didn’t quite understand when Minghao told it to him; Seokmin has to be the one to read the book, even though it’s written in the language of Minghao’s people. Surely it would be faster for Minghao to do it himself?

“I can’t read,” Minghao says, dropping Seokmin’s gaze. His fingers fidget against the opened page of the book, running over the lines of text there thoughtlessly, and Seokmin realizes that the words there must make about as much sense to Minghao as they do to him.

Oh.

“Oh,” Seokmin says quietly. “Did you – never learn?”

“I was too young when Numen took me,” Minghao says, voice low. “My family was not rich, and schooling is expensive. I was saving to send myself, but – well.”

“How did it happen?” Seokmin asks. He knows Numen took him from the woods, stole him away in his sleep, but how did he manage to kidnap Minghao? Minghao has magic, the same as Numen, yet he is terrified of him. How young was Minghao that he was unable to defend himself?

Minghao’s fingers curl against the page, his face shuttering, and Seokmin is about to tell him never mind, he doesn’t need to know, when Minghao speaks.

“I was playing in the woods,” he says, very quietly and steadily. “The same woods you were in when he took you. My kind and yours live parallel lives, not quite on different planes but on separate … levels. The Aesir are not gods, or even demigods like Numen is, but we are magic; it runs through our veins as thickly as blood. Numen –” he pauses as his lip curls, shaking his head, “– Numen is a Titan, or that is the closest approximation in your tongue. The Titans and the Aesir have been at war for generations – generations in my kind’s lifetimes, not yours. It would be closer to millennia by your reckoning. I should not have been on earth, should not have been so careless, so reckless.” He closes his eyes, and Seokmin clings more tightly to his hand. “When he saw the chance, of course he took me. I could not fight him; I wasn’t strong enough. My wings had not yet even fully grown in, and when they did –”

He stops again, and this time Seokmin knows why. His eyes go to Minghao’s back, hunched beneath the weight of his words, where he knows there are ugly scars. He knows exactly what Numen did next.

“Well,” Minghao says, “it doesn’t matter much. He didn’t kill me, after all; he just made me … lesser.”

“You could never be lesser,” Seokmin says, the words sticking in his throat. The sentence doesn’t quite make sense, but he means it – the sentiment. He means it so much. He can’t really understand the scope of what Minghao has lost, more than his family or his freedom but his very identity, but Minghao is not diminished at all in Seokmin’s eyes. If Minghao is less than he ever was, there is still plenty of him left to make half again any person Seokmin has ever met. “You – he – you are four times the man he is,” he assures, struggling to express what he’s thinking. “You are _wonderful_.”

Minghao’s mouth twitches, a feeble attempt at a smile. “You have never known a true Aesir,” he says, shrugging. “If you did, you would not think me so special.”

“Well, when we get out of here you can introduce me to some, and then I’ll tell you the same thing,” Seokmin promises.

“I’ll never see my family again, Seokmin,” Minghao says, turning his head to meet Seokmin’s eyes. “My wings are gone; I don’t _count_ anymore. That isn’t what this is about for me.”

“Then what’s it about?” Seokmin asks, feeling slightly sick at the finality in Minghao’s voice when he denounced himself like that.

He must still _count_ – Seokmin can’t imagine his own family giving up on him just because he lost his hands or something. They must be waiting for him, wherever they are, missing him, wanting him home. When they escape, Seokmin will take Minghao home – first to Minghao’s home, so he can see that his family has been looking for him after all, and then to Seokmin’s own home, so he can meet everyone Seokmin loves and they can love Minghao too. Minghao needs more people to love him; he has been lonely for far too long.

Minghao laughs, and this time the sound is not joyful, does not fill Seokmin with warmth. This time, the sound chills Seokmin down to his very bones.

“To kill Numen, of course,” he says, eyes burning with a very different kind of fire now, the kind that speaks to pain buried so deep it twists the shape of your bones to make a home for itself.

His hand is warm in Seokmin’s, and his eyes are dark as midnight.

He is not human, Seokmin realizes, for the first time properly taking in that fact. He is not human, and his pain is not human, and his anger is not human. Seokmin has no idea how alike to himself Minghao is, really, knows him so little despite the burning surety deep inside him that he and Minghao _know_ each other in ways neither of them can explain. Minghao is not human, and Seokmin is.

In this moment, Seokmin finds he is not sure at all how much that fact bothers him, but –

He suspects rather less than it should.

~~~

They end up getting through very little of the book by the time Minghao finishes the enchantment that will allow Seokmin to read Aesira, and they both agree to risk coming back to it later, after supper, rather than risk Numen coming to find them should they be late.

Supper is the only meal Numen observes, and he demands that Seokmin observe it with him. He made that very clear this afternoon when he found Seokmin in the kitchen, rummaging for food – he was happy to have Minghao come in and prepare something for him, but he was firm on the point that, when it came time for the evening meal, Seokmin would eat with him.

Seokmin hurries back to his room to change, assured by Minghao that there would be clothes laid out for him and that he should not anger Numen by appearing in anything else, while Minghao slips away to prepare the actual food. When he arrives, he finds a gauzy shirt waiting for him, its sheer green fabric softer than lambswool in his hands and falling to just below his knees when he puts it on. He is glad that there is another shirt to go over it, a cardigan of glittering diamond-bright satin, as well as a pair of sturdy sapphire-blue pants. He is still given no shoes or socks, but he has mostly gotten used to that now; the cold is unpleasant, but bearable – especially when his escape is so close at hand.

He needs to be careful not to telegraph their plans to Numen tonight. He’s been left alone all day, free to explore the tower at his leisure since Minghao refused to let him shadow him and assist in his chores. Minghao told him Numen always follows this pattern in his interactions with his victims, a creature of habit despite the way his moods seem to be so mercurial – even there, a pattern lies, and it is quite simple: when provoked, Numen lashes out, and he does so with violence and malice both, but as long as he gets his way, he is easy enough to manage.

Seokmin will just have to keep him docile for the evening, but not give in to his mind powers, and then after supper he and Minghao can sneak back to the roof to look at the book. It won’t take them long to find what they need, he’s sure – he’s a fast reader and he only has to give Minghao a quick summary of the headings for each page, long and complicated as they are, and Minghao knows whether to read further or skip entirely, familiar enough with the ways of his people to keep them moving through the book at a brisk pace.

Once dressed, Seokmin makes his way to the dining hall, guided by Socius, who materialized outside his door in the time it took Seokmin to glance back and pull it shut.

The dining hall is just as grand as he remembers it, fading sunlight dazzling its way around the room, bouncing from crystalline walls to bejeweled chandeliers to the heavy silver spread across the table. Two places are set again, and Seokmin moves to take the one he used before, but Numen stops him, appearing behind him when he is not ten steps into the room.

“My little rose, how fine you look tonight,” he murmurs, his hand gliding over Seokmin’s shoulder and down his arm. The trail his touch leaves stings, and Seokmin shudders against the cold.

“Numen,” he says, uncertainly. It is how he addressed Numen this morning, when he came to check on Seokmin after returning from his outing, but Seokmin still feels unsure, still feels like Numen is going to tear his head off and swallow it if he ticks him off. Like he is going to devour him whole.

_The things in that wood will eat you alive._

Not that Seokmin knows what Numen is likely to do to him if he _doesn’t_ piss him off – Seokmin never could make himself ask Minghao what, exactly, happens to all the people Numen kidnapped before, what Numen will do to him if he falls to his spell. Hopefully, Seokmin will never need to find out.

“Why don’t we talk a little before supper is served,” Numen says, his hand sliding around Seokmin’s elbow to guide him over to the side of the room, clearly giving an order rather than a suggestion.

Seokmin doesn’t resist; he just keeps his head down so he doesn’t have to look Numen in the eyes.

When they arrive in front of the open wall and Numen pulls him to a stop, that option is taken from him.

“Let me see you, my pretty flower,” Numen says, his voice light and teasing. “Why do you hide from me?” He places his other hand, the one not still sending daggers of pain into Seokmin’s arm, beneath Seokmin’s chin and tilts his face up, forcing Seokmin to meet his eyes.

“I’m not,” Seokmin says, faintly, trying to keep his focus on Numen’s forehead, his eyebrows, his nose – anywhere but his eyes. It’s hard, though, some kind of pull exerted by Numen’s gaze, certainly magic, compelling Seokmin to _look_.

Seokmin doesn’t. He smiles at Numen, hoping it will placate him, and turns his head towards the window-wall instead.

Numen lets him, chuckling lightly, and moves his hand from Seokmin’s chin to his hair, brushing it back from Seokmin’s face it long, lazy strokes. Seokmin can’t contain the way it makes him shiver, but Numen doesn’t seem to mind – if anything, he seems to enjoy seeing Seokmin at such unease.

“How have you enjoyed your day, my darling?” Numen asks, drawing Seokmin closer until he has no choice but to lean his weight against Numen’s side. It is unnerving how much bigger than Seokmin Numen is, well over a foot taller and significantly wider, despite his relatively narrow build for his size, everything about him dwarfing Seokmin completely.

“Well,” Seokmin says, thinking first of the book he stole and then frantically casting about for something else he did today. “I – found the garden.”

“And do you like it?” Numen asks, still stroking Seokmin’s hair, his touch painful and cold.

“Yep,” Seokmin says, struggling not to flinch away. “It’s really, really nice. Pretty. I like the – um, flowers.”

“I have cultivated that room for many hundreds of years,” Numen says, his tone musing. “Every flower in it is precious to me, though I have had so many. Each is special in its own way.” His hand pauses for a moment, heavy against the crown of Seokmin’s head.

The words suggest unpleasant thoughts to Seokmin, something dark taking shape as he thinks about the plants he saw, all crowded together into that little tower room. They were in every color imaginable, their leaves long and thin and fat and variegated and plain and curling, the blossoms even more unique, every one of them in its own little pot, painted with intricate designs that Seokmin did not bother to look too closely at.

Now, he wonders what he would have seen if he had.

Numen’s hand resumes its motion through his hair, calm but not calming against the nausea in Seokmin’s gut.

“Do you like the view from up here, my rose?” Numen asks, giving Seokmin something else to focus on, and he seizes the small mercy gladly.

He lifts his eyes, actually looking out in the direction he is facing, into the vast expanse of nothingness that stretches, formless and unending, from their vantage point on the tower. It is not exactly a view, in his opinion, since there is nothing to see, but he does not think that is the answer Numen wants.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, hoping that’s correct, relieved when Numen hums an agreement above his head.

“I built my tower up here to be away from the mortal riffraff,” he says. “Though, of course, not all of you are so very unpleasant to look at.” His tone implies that this is a joke between them, or possibly flirting.

Seokmin laughs hollowly. Numen tugs lightly at his hair in response, gentle enough that Seokmin thinks the gesture means approval rather than displeasure.

“It does have the advantage of beauty,” Numen continues, “a well-chosen spot, indeed. While I can come and go as I wish, it does keep the mortals on this side or that of my enchantments, as I like them.” His voice takes on a warning edge, though his fingers continue to move through Seokmin’s hair lightly. “No one goes in or out without my consent.”

There is no escape, he means – just in case Seokmin was thinking of it.

“Who would want to leave?” Seokmin says, barely managing to make it sound halfway convincing, but Numen is apparently mollified by the attempt.

“Indeed,” he says, giving one last pat to Seokmin’s head and then pulling away, stepping back and leaving Seokmin, for one terrifying moment, standing far too close to the edge of the floor, unsupported, staring out into the void.

Seokmin was looking out, and he suddenly finds himself looking down, down into _nothingness_, the room spinning away from him and tilting back, his body pitching forward, sucked down, down, down, _down_ –

And then Numen is holding him, drawing him away from the edge with amusement in his voice as he says something Seokmin cannot hear over the roaring in his ears. He feels too light, untethered, as Numen leads him to his chair and helps him sit.

His hands are shaking, and he shoves them between his knees, pressing them together. He didn’t know he was afraid of heights. Then again, he’s never been quite this high before.

On the far side of the table, Numen calls for supper and Seokmin tries to blink the panicked blur from his eyes – the relentless sparkling of everything in the room, including Seokmin’s own clothes, does not help.

Tonight, the food is much more elaborate than it was yesterday, golden trays piled high with cooked fish and steaming pies, vegetables in sauce and candied nuts dripping honey. Seokmin has no idea how Minghao managed to prepare all this in the less than an hour since he saw him last. Or, well, he supposes he does have one idea – magic.

When Minghao serves him, Seokmin’s fingers itch to reach out and take the tray from him – it looks heavy. He doesn’t like the feeling of Minghao waiting on him, even more uncomfortable with it now that he knows Minghao than he was when it was just some stranger serving him, but when his fingers twitch towards the serving utensils, Minghao draws them ever so slightly away, not making eye contact but communicating all the same not to make a fuss. Seokmin understands; Numen never explicitly told him not to interact with Minghao, but the few times he has seen them together – at supper last night and in the kitchen at lunchtime today when he ordered Minghao to fix Seokmin something to eat – his eyes have been sharp with what Seokmin can tell will bloom into jealousy if they give it reason to. It is safer for both of them if Seokmin ignores Minghao when Numen is around.

Fortunately, they shouldn’t have to pretend for much longer.

Everything Minghao serves him is delicious, and Seokmin is glad that Numen does not speak to him while they eat. Numen is focused on his own food, for the most part, inhaling enormous quantities of every dish as Minghao brings him more and more, his end of the table littered with dirty plates Minghao has no time to take away. In the moments Numen is not eating, he stares at Seokmin, a vague smile about his mouth, but says nothing.

Seokmin tries not to look at him. With Minghao walking by him every few minutes, he finds this is easily done.

He is glad, at least, that Minghao’s injury from yesterday has healed. It lingered today, when he and Minghao crossed paths at various interludes, but now, a full day from when the blow was struck, the bruise is gone, leaving only the vertical scars to mar Minghao’s still-beautiful face.

When all the food is gone, Seokmin expects to feel sleepy and slow like he did before, despite Minghao assuring him that it will not happen again, and he is pleasantly surprised that Minghao’s promise holds true. Minghao has not lied to him once, after all; even where magic is concerned, it is clearly silly of Seokmin to doubt him.

“Come now, my pretty blossom,” Numen says, speaking for the first time in what must be over an hour, the passage of time more apparent to Seokmin tonight than it was yesterday, his senses unmarred by whatever magic had hold of him then. “Why don’t you sing me a song?”

Seokmin stares at him, feeling off-kilter. “A – a song?” he asks.

“Yes, dear one, a song,” Numen says, a laugh in his voice, as though Seokmin’s confusion is amusing to him. “I heard you sing in the forest, before you came to me. It is what led me to you, my sweet one, and now I wish to hear that voice fill my halls.”

He was taken because of his singing? Seokmin has to bite down on the swell of anger that rises in him, sudden and surprising, at the revelation. Singing has always been his escape, his way to cope when things are hard and his way to let the joy out when things are good. His _mother_ taught him to sing, leading him through his scales at her knee on winter nights, it is a _gift_ she gave him, and now it has been turned against him?

“Let me hear you, my darling rosebud,” Numen says, oblivious to Seokmin’s internal churning. “I would have you decorate my home with your voice as well as your body.”

To his right, standing in relief against the backdrop of the nighttime void, Minghao catches Seokmin’s eye. When Seokmin looks at him, turning his head only slightly, remembering discretion even as he reels with indignation and loss, Minghao shakes his head, the movement so small Seokmin barely registers it.

Play along.

But Seokmin doesn’t want to.

“I –”

He sees Minghao shake his head again, more noticeably this time, reading him before he has hardly spoken, but Seokmin ignores him.

“No,” he settles on, simple and to the point. “Sorry,” he adds, a bit belatedly, not wanting to seem like he is disrespecting Numen any more than – well, any more than he is.

Lit by fractured candlelight from every angle, a thousand pinpricks of light, Numen’s face darkens. The _room_ darkens, glittering reflections dimming as a heavy atmosphere rolls in above his head.

Seokmin shrinks back, gripping the armrests of his chair tightly. He can’t see Minghao anymore, the edges of the room cast into absolute shadow, only Seokmin and Numen visible with the table between them. There are no literal clouds in the room, but the air is heavy, pressing down on him, like the moments before a storm.

Now, he waits for the lightning strike.

“No?” Numen repeats, his tone making it a question. “Are you certain, little one?” His attitude is casual, still lounging in his seat, arms draped carelessly over the supports of the chair so that his hands dangle, fingers weighted by elegant rings dragging down, but his gaze is sharp, predatory – hungry.

_Eat you alive._

Seokmin is not at all certain, suddenly, all the courage bleeding out of him onto the floor, disappearing into the still-growing darkness. He opens his mouth, perhaps to take it back, but no sound comes out.

Numen’s expression drops further into displeasure, and the light in the room turns sickly green.

Seokmin chokes, a sound that might have originally been a whimper lodging in his throat as he struggles to stand, to _run_, everything in him screaming to run, to get away, to escape this predator bearing down on him as Numen circles the table, as he arrives beside Seokmin’s chair in the time it takes Seokmin to find his feet, an icy hand seizing his shoulder with a grip like a dagger pinning him in place.

Seokmin feels something running down his arm, and, when he looks, he sees blood. Numen’s fingers – claws, they are _claws_, sunk deep into Seokmin’s shoulder – press down, and Seokmin cries out, dropping to his knees, his other arm catching on the edge of the table as he falls.

“Little flower,” Numen says, his voice carrying thunder again, like Seokmin heard the first time he encountered him and, then too as now, all light and goodness was sucked away, the very oxygen in Seokmin’s lungs torn from him as Numen grows, everything around him destroyed and consumed by his presence.

Darkness is creeping into the edges of Seokmin’s vision now, not in the room but in his own eyesight as he struggles and fails to breath.

“Pretty rosebud,” Numen says, thunders, commands, “change your mind.”

Seokmin nods – he tries to nod, thinks he nods, unsure of anything but the terror still racing through him even as he loses consciousness.

And then, suddenly, the air is back.

He falls to the floor, abruptly unsupported by Numen’s grip on his shoulder, and coughs through his next few breaths, shaking too badly to even lift his head from where it is pressed against the cold marble beneath him.

“Oh, my dear Seokmin,” Numen croons, making Seokmin shudder anew as he crouches to touch his hand to the top of Seokmin’s head. “I will never hurt you, my darling, but you must learn your place.”

You just _did_ hurt me, Seokmin wants to say, but has the sense not to. He tries to cringe away from Numen’s hand, but there is nowhere to go; he is lying nearly flat on the floor already.

“My pretty flower,” Numen says, the words nearly a sigh. “My little nightingale. Will you sing for me?”

This time, Seokmin nods, knowing now the consequences of refusal. His shoulder throbs and bleeds, soaking the sleeves of both shirts he is wearing, dripping crimson onto white stone. When he looks up, Numen has retreated, his back to Seokmin as he paces away; when he turns to the left, he sees Minghao.

He looks stricken, his expression cracked open and devastated, eyes horrified as they stare not at Seokmin’s face, but at his shoulder. Seokmin pushes himself to his knees, and Minghao lurches forward, as if to come help, but then stops.

Seokmin looks over and finds Numen watching them both. His face is devoid of any expression.

“Get up, rosebud, before I lose my temper,” Numen says, the words ominous in the wake of what he just did. Seokmin cannot tell if he is saying he will attack him like that again, or if the implication is that Seokmin has not seen yet what Numen is like when he is angered. Either way, he is not eager to find out.

He climbs unsteadily to his feet, stepping uncertainly towards Numen, away from the table, stumbling forward when a rush of air at his back nearly knocks him off his feet.

The table and everything on it is gone, from one breath to the next, vanished to leave only Numen’s chair behind, the mass of it even more ostentatious and intimidating now that there is nothing else to draw the eye.

Watching Seokmin, dark shadows still clinging to his form, Numen stalks over to the chair and grips it by the back. He drags it forward, the shriek of its legs across the marble terrible, until it stands alone in the absolute center of the room. With a flutter of the long, moonlight-silver robe around him, he sits, his legs splayed out in front of him, his form seeming much larger than before, all but obscuring his seat, as he holds Seokmin’s gaze.

“Come,” he says, voice cold as early frost. “Sit with me.”

Slowly, Seokmin staggers forward, each step rattling his injured shoulder, waves of pain rolling over him with every motion, to stand before the Titan. When he is close enough, Numen grabs him by the neck, fingers tight and unyielding, and drags him into his lap, legs and arms sprawling ungracefully as Numen pulls him close.

“Now, little songbird, _sing_.”

And Seokmin does.

He sings.

And he sings and he sings and he sings, until his voice is rough and cracking, Numen’s hand a collar of ice around his throat, his other hand heavy on Seokmin’s stomach.

He sings every song his mother taught him, every song his sisters taught him, every song he learned from Junhui and Hansol and Jihoon, every song that has ever brought him comfort or joy because this is not the moment to hold something back for himself, this is the moment to endure.

In this moment, there is nothing to do but survive.

He sings for hours, he’s sure of it, and all the while Minghao stands motionless on the other end of the room where Seokmin left him, staring at the floor with his hands at his sides. Seokmin stares at him, at the long lines of him, at the scars on his face, at the way his posture screams out that he is in pain and that pain is for Seokmin, is because Seokmin is hurt, and that gives Seokmin the courage to keep going, the strength to keep singing until his voice gives out, so much sooner than it usually does, taxed by the grip around his neck and the cold against his skin.

“Stop,” Numen commands him, finally, when Seokmin can make no sound but broken croaking in his hold. Numen does not let him go, though. Instead, his hand moves from Seokmin’s neck to his chin, lifting Seokmin’s head like he did before to force Seokmin to look at him.

Seokmin does, unable to hide anything anymore. He stares up at Numen and shudders at the thing looking down at him.

How did Seokmin ever think he was beautiful? Now, he looks at him and all he sees is cruelty.

Numen’s fingers rub at his skin, dancing across his chin, tilting his head farther and farther back, before he finally stops, holding Seokmin’s eyes as he pushes him back, pressing Seokmin against his chest.

“Where have you been looking, little songbird?” he asks, voice low and dangerous, thunder leashed but not tamed.

Seokmin does not mean to look at Minghao.

He does anyway, his mind and body both too exhausted to stop himself.

Numen makes a noise of understanding, and, when Seokmin lifts his gaze back to him, fear gripped tight around his heart, he sees that Numen is smiling – the kind of smile that tells Seokmin, unequivocally, that something very bad is about to happen.

“I see,” Numen says, so quietly Seokmin barely hears him. “Well, I suppose he _is_ very beautiful; I can understand why he would distract you so.” His grip on Seokmin tightens, crushing Seokmin against him, forcing him deep into the cold and pain of his embrace. “But you, my precious rose, my gilded songbird, my _pet_,” he says, a hiss sliding into his voice, like ice cracking, like a snake about to strike, like nothing Seokmin has ever heard, deafening him with the pitch and violence of it, “you, my _darling_, belong to _me_.”

In the next instant, Seokmin is on the floor, every muscle in his body cramped and useless, staring horrified as Numen stalks forward with long strides, approaching Minghao before Seokmin has a chance to cry out a warning with his ruined voice.

When Numen reaches him, he lashes out, striking Minghao across the face, and Minghao does not just fall – he tumbles back, the force of the demigod’s blow knocking him off his feet and away, skidding across the floor on his side until he hits the far wall, where he lies still and shuddering.

Numen is far from finished with him, though.

Seokmin tries to stand, to go to him, to stop Numen, but his legs won’t hold him and his voice won’t come when he tries to scream. He watches, mute and terrified, as Numen grips Minghao by the hair and throws him, back towards Seokmin this time, slamming him into the floor just shy of where Seokmin crawled.

Around Minghao, the marble has cracked and split, a crater where he landed. Seokmin thinks that no one could have survived that, but when he looks, he sees Minghao’s chest rise and fall, stuttering but steady, blood staining his clothes everywhere Seokmin looks.

Minghao’s eyes are open, though, and they meet and hold Seokmin’s as Numen comes for him again. He does not move, Seokmin does not think he can, but he mouths one word as Numen seizes him, just enough time to finish it before he is lifted into the air.

_Book_.

Seokmin would go get it, but it would be too late, surely, by then – whatever power it holds, it cannot stop Numen now, when Seokmin does not know where to look and there are hundreds of pages left to search.

In the next moment, though, he realizes that is not what Minghao was telling him at all.

Numen holds Minghao in the air with one hand, his fingers drawing blood, claws digging into the delicate skin of Minghao’s throat, while Minghao scrabbles uselessly against his hold. When Seokmin glances at him, desperate, still trying to stand, to move, to fight, to _save_, Numen is looking right at him.

It steals the life from Seokmin’s bones.

“I don’t share, little songbird,” Numen says, thunder and ice and cruelty, his eyes dead and shining like sunlight. Then he turns, carrying Minghao, ignoring Seokmin’s gurgled cries against whatever magic holds him silent, and he walks to the edge of the room.

Minghao meets his eyes, and there is a strange desperation there – strange, because it is very obviously not desperation for himself. He looks at Seokmin, and, again, his lips move, struggling, it seems, to do even that much.

_Book_, Seokmin reads. And then – _Run_.

Seokmin looks back up, at his dark eyes, and nods dumbly, and Minghao’s expression relaxes, his body going limp in Numen’s hold.

Numen lifts him higher, and, when Seokmin looks at him, he realizes what is about is about to happen only seconds before it does.

He tries to scream, but is silent.

He tries to stand, but is crippled.

He tries to beg, but no words leave his lips as Numen raises Minghao up, holding him out over the edge of the room, where the floor drops into nothingness, and then tosses him away, out into the pitch black oblivion.

Seokmin’s lips form his name, but Minghao does not hear him, will never hear anything again.

He is gone.

And Seokmin is completely, desperately, devastatingly alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be complete, art needs to be seen, experienced, witnessed. So – thank you for reading my fic. I’d love it if you left a comment so I know you engaged with it, because that truly is the goal of every written work – to be engaged with – and it’s always wonderfully gratifying and vitalizing to get confirmation of that from the reader.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains non-consensual touching Seokmin has a strong negative reaction to but cannot escape, as well as a kiss I have labeled "coerced" because Seokmin has no power in the relationship and so him agreeing to it or not is immaterial as far as consent goes; he is in a position where he has no options or autonomy. At this point in the story Numen is basically a warning in and of himself.

By the light of a single, low-burning candle, Seokmin reads furtively, rushed and frightened, always frightened, in the earliest hours of the morning. Socius brought the candle to him when he asked, and Seokmin is hoping his request that no one – Numen – be notified that he has it will hold. He does not want to have to answer to why he needs a candle in his room, does not want Numen to become suspicious of him. Right now, all Seokmin has for an advantage is the fact that, since _that night_, Numen seems to think Seokmin is thoroughly cowed; he cannot afford to disabuse Numen of that opinion.

Around the edge of the book, Seokmin’s fingers curl, satin-smooth parchment sliding through his trembling grip as he turns another page. The pages seem different in this lighting, a shimmer coming off of them that makes Seokmin feel deeply, achingly sad when he tries to read the words that dance across his vision. He wonders if the book misses Minghao too, his own grief pressing hard against the top of his throat.

Seokmin knows little of magic, but he finds it easy to believe that even a tome like this, leather-bound and lifeless, could ache with the knowledge that Minghao is gone.

He tries not to think of Minghao. Mostly, he fails in that endeavor. It has been six days since Numen threw him off the tower, and Seokmin has thought of little else but the motion of Minghao’s lips as he told Seokmin to run, to save himself even as he was being beaten across the length and breadth of the dining hall.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Numen, since that night, has been patient with Seokmin, hardly pressing at all when Seokmin won’t meet his eyes or barely responds to him at supper, and the air is always thick around him as Seokmin waits for the demigod’s tolerance to snap. While more lenient to Seokmin’s silent avoidance, in counterpoint, Numen has taken to making Seokmin sit with him during the day, claiming that they need to become more acquainted with one another if Seokmin is to learn to be happy here, and that has turned out to perhaps be even worse. Seokmin suspects that Numen is attempting to wear him down through prolonged exposure, and, to Seokmin’s horror, he can feel it working. Being around Numen has not been like their first few encounters since that night at supper, but the longer Seokmin spends in his company the more strongly he feels compelled to stay there – and the deeper the ache in his chest when they are apart.

It’s terrifying. He feels no love for Numen, but he does feel drawn to him, held down and suffocating both with and without the demigod’s gaze on him.

Seokmin does not know how much longer he can hold out, how much longer he can keep hold of his own mind and body to stay away from Numen, to preserve his own sanity and will so that he can finish planning his escape, but he does not dare to push back against Numen’s commands now, no matter how much everything in him shakes and rebels against being in his presence – he is already treading on thin ice as it is.

He realized five days ago that he made a mistake, one he hopes will not be fatal, when he stole the book from Numen’s study: when he left, he forgot to replace the cut-glass ball that fell and rolled away beneath the couch. It is still there, nestled against the front leg farthest from Numen’s desk, rubbing against Seokmin’s bare foot when he sits in terrified silence and does his best to shield the ornament from the demigod’s sight.

Numen has not yet noticed – or, if he has noticed, he has not yet chosen to confront Seokmin about the displacement of his trinket, and what it signifies.

Seokmin wishes Minghao were here. Minghao would have a plan, would be calm, would help Seokmin to be calm so they could work through this together. Seokmin isn’t cut out for this kind of thing, as his clammy hands and hollow chest remind him; he isn’t brave or strong or cunning. He has never been able to talk or think or fight his way out of things, has never been heroic or bold like Jeonghan, like Seungkwan, like Chan.

Like Minghao.

With shaking hands, Seokmin drops Minghao’s book, pressing one palm over his mouth to muffle himself before he alerts Numen or Socius with his hitched breaths and sniffling. His vision is watering, the first hazy light of dawn playing tricks on his exhausted eyes, shadows long and dark at the edges of the room, and he blinks heavily. His chest feels tight, sharp metal coiled around his heart.

He isn’t cut out for this. He can’t save himself, and there is no one else who can save him. He is alone, as completely as he has ever been before, and the weight of it is crushing him.

On his crossed legs, the book sits open, pages holding their place even when hanging askew, falling half out of Seokmin’s lap and onto the bed. They glitter uselessly, taunting in their beauty, in their inability to give Seokmin answers – not ones he can act on, anyway.

There is one thing he’s read, one thing that can stop Numen, but he knows he lacks the stomach for it. He is no hero in a faerie tale, and he is nowhere near brave enough for _that_.

A knock at the door startles him, and he shoves the book beneath the covers hurriedly just as Socius pushes the door open, staring at him with its void-sky face.

“I’m awake, Socius, thank you,” Seokmin says, sniffing a bit to clear his nose. He runs a hand beneath his eyes, brushing away the wetness he can feel gathering there.

Socius says nothing, as always, and crosses the room to the washroom door that appears in the far wall, waiting silently for Seokmin to precede it inside.

Seokmin gets up, making sure the book is tucked as deep beneath the covers as it can be, and does so, ducking inside the warm bath that is magically prepared, trying to empty his mind and brace himself for the day. He doesn’t know how many more days he can last, and he doesn’t see any way out of this mess either. There is no hope for going home, no hope for anything but holding out as long as possible, delaying the inevitable for no reason at all except that he is too afraid to do otherwise.

He will live as long as he can, and then, when his strength fails and Numen robs him of what little life and will he has left, he will die.

He will die, and no one, not a single soul, will even know to mourn.

~~~

“Seokmin,” Numen says, his tone mild.

Seokmin’s head jerks up, his breath freezing in his throat as he looks over at the demigod, eyes wide and shoulders hunched.

Numen smiles at him, warm and inviting, and Seokmin is aware both of his own fear and revulsion and of the way the expression lodges deep within him, anchoring and soothing him, like finally arriving home after months away.

His stomach roils with the perversity of it.

“My little rosebud,”” Numen says, sounding amused. “I have something for you. Why don’t you come over to me?”

Seokmin is already on his feet before he thinks to stand, moving soundlessly over the carpet towards Numen’s desk. He shudders when he realizes how reflexive his obedience was, the creeping fear in his gut intensifying as he comes closer and Numen lifts a hand to touch him. Numen’s skin is as hard and unyielding as ever, ice against Seokmin’s wrist, shattered glass digging into him where Numen rubs his thumb slowly over Seokmin’s pulse point.

“My pretty songbird,” Numen murmurs, his attention on the place where they touch, the pressure of his grip increasing and then ebbing just as quickly, the heightened pain hardly having time to register before it fades again. “Come here.”

Seokmin shuffles just a bit closer, wary of the way Numen’s expression sits. He seems pleased with himself, a tension to him that Seokmin has learned to keep away from when he can. He cannot do anything now, though, but allow Numen to manhandle him gently, pulling him to stand between Numen’s knees. Then, very quickly, Numen wraps both hands around Seokmin’s waist and picks him up, setting him on top of the desk so that their eyelines are even.

The pit growing in Seokmin’s stomach doubles in size, and he swallows against nausea.

Numen is grinning at him.

“There has been distance between us, of late, little rose,” Numen says, one hand left on Seokmin’s side while the other comes up to cradle his cheek. It hurts more than usual, Seokmin thinks, but does not let himself flinch away. Numen’s smile grows. He shifts his hand back just a little so that his fingers can play with Seokmin’s hair, the palm of his hand still encompassing an entire half of Seokmin’s face, driving daggers into his skin with every breath.

“I think we’ve been closer,” Seokmin says, hiding the tremor in his voice as much as he can. His legs are shaking, thighs shivering openly in Numen’s sight with the blend of pain and fear, but at least he can twist his fingers around each other behind his back to hide their trembling. “Closer than – um – before.” His voice fails him at the end, dwindling into nothing when Numen’s fingers brush the back of his head, the digits elongating unnervingly to reach.

Numen chuckles, a blatantly false sound. “Do you, little rose?” he asks, the question seeming loaded, his eyes sharp and assessing, burning sunlight straight into Seokmin’s soul.

“Yes,” Seokmin says, the word forced out as barely more than air, almost lost in the vanishing space between them as Numen leans in.

He wants to close his eyes, but he doesn’t know if that would make Numen angry. Numen has not been this aggressive since he hurt Minghao, keeping Seokmin close but never forcing contact for long or this intimately. It seems that reprieve is over.

“I suppose that is good,” Numen says, tone contemplative but still reserved, as if the blow is poised to fall but he is waiting on some signal, some misstep on Seokmin’s part. His hand at Seokmin’s side dips down, finding the edge of Seokmin’s shirt and pushing it up so that he can touch skin.

Seokmin does close his eyes now, the dual points of connection, of pain, demanding, dizzying, forcing him to hold very, very still or else shatter beneath the weight of it all. As his body feels more drawn to Numen, it also feels the ache of his touch more acutely, even minor brushes of his fingers bursting sharp agony in Seokmin’s skin and bones in the last few days. He wonders if it is something Numen is doing deliberately or if it has to do with the effect of prolonged exposure to Numen’s magic on Seokmin’s very human body. He would believe either; Numen is cruel enough for this to be some sort of punishment for Seokmin’s continued passive rebellion, but Seokmin is leery enough to magic to believe most anything of it, too.

“Nightingale,” Numen says, speaking the word directly into Seokmin’s ear, compelling a shudder from him. “I want you to be happy here. You believe that, don’t you?”

Seokmin nods, lies, feeling frantic as the pain builds while Numen rubs his side and uses his other hand to press Seokmin closer to him, forcing him to lean over the edge of the desk, into Numen’s space. His eyes sting, shut tightly, and his fingers are cramping with how forcefully he is clinging to his own hands.

He wonders if this is the moment he dies. He wonders if this is the moment Numen will kill him, giving up on Seokmin as a lost cause and snapping his neck, tossing his body off the tower like he did Minghao’s.

Seokmin feels a new wave of fear come over him when he realizes that he is not certain the only emotion that strikes him at the thought is sorrow.

He wants to live – he _does_. He wants to live and go home to Jeonghan, to Junhui, to his mother and his sisters and his uncle and every other person he loves, to run through tall grass and catch fireflies in his hands but let them go, put to right every wrong he committed in his youth, and watch the sparks of gold flicker at the edges of the forest, as close to magic as he will ever come again.

He wants to live. He wants to stay alive, to keep breathing and hoping and fighting.

He wants to _live_.

Numen’s hands are heavy and agonizing as he drags them over Seokmin’s skin, his face and his side afire, and brings them both to rest on Seokmin’s thighs. He reaches up with a cooing sound to wipe at the tears on Seokmin’s face, a pleased smile dancing about his lips.

He’s so beautiful. He is more beautiful than anything Seokmin has ever seen, and everything within him aches to reach out and touch him.

He doesn’t want to touch him, wants to be as far away from him as he can.

He does neither, moves not closer or farther from Numen. He simply sits there, vision spinning and stomach churning with the war inside him, magic and self-preservation clashing violently.

The terrifying thing is, he already knows which will win.

“My precious flower,” Numen says, voice low, rubbing at the thick, iridescent fabric of Seokmin’s pants. “I want you to be happy,” he says again. “I want to dress you in gold and diamonds, feed you honey and wine, keep you at my side for years to come.” As he speaks, he plucks at the shimmering golden weave of Seokmin’s shirt, hand dropping to cover Seokmin’s stomach next, and then curls his fingers around Seokmin’s back, dragging him forward until his knees press against Numen’s chest. He leans down, his moonlight hair fanning out, obscuring everything else from Seokmin’s sight, as he murmurs, “Will you let me?”

There can be only one answer; Seokmin knows this. Numen is not asking him a question – he is issuing a demand.

Seokmin wants to obey.

Numbly, Seokmin nods. The scent of Numen is overpowering, his hair fragrant like flowers Seokmin cannot pin down the origin of, enticing and intoxicating. Numen’s voice is so smooth, so kind, his attention so heady.

His attention is a gift, and Seokmin swallows against the urge to sink to his knees and thank him for it.

“Tell me what I can do to please you, tell me what you desire, and it is yours,” Numen says, generous and loving, his hands in Seokmin’s hair, on his back, digging into Seokmin’s very soul to hold him here, hold him close, keep him where he belongs.

_Nothing_, Seokmin wants to say, there is nothing, nothing I need but you, and he opens his mouth to say it, but then –

As his mouth opens, Numen pulls back, just slightly, just enough that Seokmin’s view expands and his eyes can dart across his god’s face, taking in every nuance of him, every prayer-worthy inch of perfection, and as he looks his eye catches bizarrely on something over Numen’s shoulder – on an empty space near the top of the bookshelf over to the right.

It is where Minghao’s book used to be, before Seokmin took it for him.

It is – it –

_Minghao_.

Seokmin inhales sharply, a sudden pain in his head doubling him over as he gasps. He can feel Numen’s hands on him, stroking him, touching him, groping him.

He wants them _off_.

“Little rose, what’s the matter?” Numen asks, his voice still airy and compelling, but Seokmin’s head is clearing as the pain builds, nausea rising, every inch of him threatening to burst at the sudden pressure he feels inside.

He knows, with rigid clarity, that this was almost the end. Numen almost had him, and Seokmin would have been glad to be had, his soul and spirit, his identity, gone, washed away by Numen’s thrall.

Perhaps the magic of Minghao’s people dragged him back, whatever of it might be lingering in the place their book once sat. Seokmin remembers the pull he felt, the headiness of holding the ancient tome in his hands in those first few moments. He knows little of magic, but he does know this: since he arrived in this tower, Minghao has been his protector, even after he was ripped away, keeping Seokmin grounded and sane, and the warmth Seokmin felt from Minghao he feels also from that magic book every time he holds it under the tenuous safety of the night.

The Aesir saved him.

Seokmin will do what he can to thank them.

“I –” he says, voice failing him, coming out weak and rough.

“Yes, little one?” Numen croons, keeping him close, dropping a kiss to the crown of his head.

“Minghao,” Seokmin says, before fear can paralyze him, before he can second-guess himself and abandon the impulse to _try_.

Around him, taking up so much of Seokmin’s world with his looming form, Numen stops. His hands freeze in place on Seokmin’s neck and waist, his chest ceasing to rise and fall beneath his shirt.

Seokmin holds still too, his breaths shallow, waiting to see how deeply the answering blow cuts.

After a long moment, Numen’s merciless clock ticking steadily as the only marker of time’s passage while all the rest of the world seems to hang suspended around them, Numen pulls back. Seokmin feels a crazy urge to seize him, to hold on, not because of any magic but because he is suddenly, petrifyingly afraid of what comes next. He does not grab Numen, though; he sits motionless, staring at the curve of Numen’s shoulder and the shine of the starlight robe he is wearing, and waits.

Numen sits back in his chair, robe glittering in the brilliant morning sunlight. He is quiet, letting the clock and Seokmin’s own uneven breathing fill the silence.

Finally, he speaks.

“The servant boy?” Numen says, his voice soft and calm.

Seokmin still flinches, expecting thunder and pain. When Numen lifts a hand to his chin, forcing him to look up, he hunches into himself, his hands grabbing at his own shirt and twisting harshly at his chest.

“Rosebud,” Numen says, a note of warning in his voice now, and Seokmin nods frantically in response.

“Yes, my – I – Numen, yes, him, I –”

He snaps his mouth shut when Numen tips his head back with the hand on his chin, forcing Seokmin’s throat into a long line beneath his gaze.

“You would have him back here?” Numen asks, tone neutral again. “Why?”

Seokmin does not have an excuse prepared. Numen’s jealousy is what got Minghao killed – and, well, he _is_ dead … isn’t he? Seokmin doesn’t know if Numen can bring Minghao back, but he has to ask.

Minghao had wings, once – maybe he can fly, and he has been, all this time, simply lost in the nothingness outside the tower, unable to land or return.

Magic is a very strange thing.

Seokmin feels something drip down his chin, wetting the fabric over his legs. Numen’s fingers dig sharply into his chin.

“I miss –” _him_, he cannot say. Seokmin hesitates, floundering, Numen’s expression darkening by degrees the longer he stalls. “Food. His cooking. I – I miss eating – with you – his cooking.”

“The ragslave can cook,” Numen says levelly, though he does seem slightly appeased by Seokmin’s inclusion of Numen in his explanation.

“Not as well,” Seokmin says, which is true. Socius leaves a lot to be desired, the food since Minghao has been gone bland and unappetizing.

Numen hums, his hold on Seokmin easing up, letting Seokmin sit up straight again instead of leaning back as his thumb rubs back and forth along his aching chin.

When Seokmin glances down, he sees red on his pants, on Numen’s fingers. He swallows bile at the knowledge that his chin must be a mangled mess.

“I do not like to share, little rose,” Numen says, finally, his voice hard.

“You won’t,” Seokmin promises him. He has not thought this through, not at all, but he thinks he knows what he needs to say, needs to do. Numen has not said it is impossible to bring Minghao back, to save him, and as long as it is possible Seokmin will do everything in his power to rescue him.

Seokmin is no faerie protagonist, but _this_, he can do.

“If you bring him back, I –” he pauses, swallows the urge to vomit, to take back the promise even before it is made, to bite down on his tongue until it bleeds. “I will give you what you want so much.”

“And what is that, little one?” Numen asks, amusement heavy in his tone now, staring at Seokmin with bright eyes when Seokmin forces himself to meet his gaze.

“A kiss,” he says. “Willingly. I – I will kiss you of my own volition.”

“Little rose,” Numen purrs, both hands on Seokmin’s face now, cupping it, fingers leaving trails of cold fire in their wake, “I want so much more from you than that.”

“I know,” Seokmin says. He knows that. But – “You know that once I give you this, I won’t be able to resist you anymore. I will be yours, completely and always.”

He feels sick with the words, but he can think of nothing else, nothing at all to offer a literal god who already has Seokmin so at his mercy. This is all Seokmin has to bargain with.

He can only hope that, once Minghao returns, he will be able to save Seokmin from his self-imposed doom.

“You are toying with me, nightingale,” Numen says. The words are ominous, but he looks pleased, a smile tugging at his mouth – seeing it gives Seokmin no thrill or comfort. “I do love a game, though. And,” he leans in, once again enveloping Seokmin in his presence, his scent, his power, pressing his lips lightly to Seokmin’s forehead for a lingering moment, Seokmin shuddering helplessly beneath him, “I will not mind at all demonstrating to you who is the mouse and who is the cat.” He drops his voice further, exhaling the words into Seokmin’s ear. “I think you will like my claws.”

When Numen sits back, Seokmin is shaking, unable to look him in the eyes anymore. Numen laughs at him, light and satisfied, and pats his leg gently.

“Go now, little one, and prepare yourself,” he says jovially. “I will see you at sundown to acknowledge our vows.”

Seokmin does not linger.

He leaves the library with hurried steps, tremors running through him, making him clumsy, with the sound of Numen’s laughter ringing behind him.

~~~

Sunset comes too fast and too slow, Seokmin left with nothing to do but pace in his room, waiting to be summoned. He has tried to look through the book again, hoping to catch something he has missed, but there is nothing, he knows there is nothing, and the words swim in his vision.

His feet are aching when Socius comes for him, his arms sore from where he has dug his fingers into them. Socius directs him through to the washroom, the routine familiar by now, and when Seokmin emerges he finds, as always, his previous outfit gone and replaced by something new.

Except, this time, what awaits him hardly counts as clothes at all.

It is a single garment, a long robe that is open in the front with dozens of delicate fastenings to tie it closed, but it is not the style of it that bothers Seokmin. What disturbs him is that, when he holds it up in the fading light, it appears to be almost completely sheer.

He looks at Socius, wanting to protest but knowing it will do no good. Socius stares impassively back at him, empty hood glinting and comfortless.

There is nothing else to do but put it on.

Once he does, he is relieved to find that he is actually fairly covered – somehow – despite the way the robe shimmers and hangs translucent against him, clingy and thin. It must be magic, revealing nothing he has not already been forced to reveal with the cut and form of various other clothes he has been given, while giving the impression of showing so much more. It is hardly comforting, but, again, there is nothing to be done. Seokmin does up the ties on the front all the way to the hollow of his throat, the robe pressing against him with its narrow cut, and then gestures for Socius to lead him out.

They do not go to the dining hall, where Seokmin had expected this transaction to take place – it is one of the only rooms he has seen in the tower, despite how long he has been here. Instead, Socius brings him to an empty room with a single window set in the ceiling to reveal the sky, even though Seokmin knows this is not the top of the tower and he saw no skylight on the roof.

Numen is standing in the center of the room, his robe matching Seokmin’s but in diamond-silver instead of Seokmin’s pale blue. When he sees Seokmin, he smiles, and Seokmin is relieved that it has no effect on him but to make his palms sweat with fear.

“My darling,” Numen says, holding out a hand for Seokmin to take. Seokmin does, and Numen presses it briefly against his chest, pulling Seokmin onto his toes so that he can reach. Then, Numen releases him and gestures him to the edge of the room, where the door used to be, urging him to stand with his back to the smooth stone. “I can trust you to fulfill your part of the bargain after mine, can’t I?” Numen asks, almost coy as he glances sidelong at Seokmin.

Seokmin nods, his mouth dry.

Numen chuckles. “Of course I can,” he says. “Very well, then – close your eyes, my dear, I do not want you blinded tonight.”

Seokmin barely has time to follow the directive before a white light fills the room, violent in its power, and he is thrown backwards by a sudden rush of howling wind. He presses himself against the wall, cowering blindly under the onslaught, hiding his face in his knees as Numen shouts something above the chaos that rattles the bones beneath Seokmin’s skin.

His breath is coming fast, chest heaving as oxygen escapes him, the pressure in the room too great for him to draw another breath. White spots dance in his eyes even as he holds them closed, pressing them hard against his legs, choking on nothing. He can feel panic building, clawing at him, and he struggles uselessly against it.

Then, just as abruptly as it began, the noise and light cut off, leaving Seokmin in absolute darkness and silence, all his senses throbbing in the sudden vacuum.

He is shaking, terror still there, and he does not move until he hears a voice, rough and lilting, strained as though it has gone days without water but recognizable to Seokmin all the same.

“I –” Minghao gasps out, the word fading into an incomprehensible noise, then choking, and Seokmin’s head snaps up.

Minghao is lying, arms and legs spread, on the floor, blood matting his hair and staining his face and clothes – it looks fresh, like Numen’s blows landed just moments ago instead of days. His eyes are wide, chest heaving beneath the foot Numen has placed on top of him.

“No, my horsefly, you have said quite enough,” Numen says, and he crouches down, putting his weight on the foot he has braced on Minghao’s chest. Minghao chokes, and Seokmin lurches forward instinctively, but when the sickly green light leaves Numen’s fingers, he is frozen, staring horrified as the magic circles Minghao’s throat, its tendrils weaving themselves into a tight web, and then pulls taut.

Minghao’s mouth drops open as if to scream, but no sound comes out.

Seokmin’s mouth is open too, gasping for air that doesn’t want to come.

It is over in seconds, the magic receding and leaving Minghao choking on the floor. Numen stands and steps away, turning his back on Minghao to approach Seokmin where he is sprawled, stare fixed on Minghao, feeling numb.

“My rose,” Numen says, voice low, “it is time for you to pay your part of this bargain.”

Seokmin looks up at him, tearing his gaze away from Minghao to see Numen standing over him, huge and glowing in the hazy, warped light, green aura still clinging to him in the dimness. He does not look like a god in this moment – he looks like a devil.

Numen reaches down and takes Seokmin by the arm, hauling him to his feet. Seokmin does not resist. When Numen pulls him in, pressing their bodies flush against each other, Seokmin’s eyes dart down and away, landing on Minghao as if drawn by a magnet.

Minghao’s stare is wide and horrified, his fingers twitching towards Seokmin as though he wants to get up, to go to him, but he cannot. His body is broken, and that is why Seokmin must do this. He has to save Minghao, even if he cannot save himself.

He closes his eyes, tilting his head back to give Numen better access to his mouth. Numen makes a pleased sound and cups his chin with his palm, sending a shudder through Seokmin as he feels the gash torn there earlier knit itself back together.

When Numen’s breath fans across his lips, Seokmin does not struggle or pull away; he stands rigid, motionless, and waits. He does not have to wait long.

When Numen’s lips touch his, Seokmin shivers, magic racing through him, hot and cold clashing in his chest, and, because there is nothing else to do, because this is the deal he made and because Numen is a god and Seokmin has never stood a chance against him, because Seokmin knows this is inevitable and there is nothing else that he can do, as Numen pulls him closer to demand more and deeper, to demand _everything_, Seokmin does the only thing he can do.

He lets go.

~~~

At supper, it is quiet.

Seokmin feels hazy still, strange all over and numb. He didn’t think it would feel like this to let Numen in. He thought it would be cold, cold as Numen’s touch, but it isn’t. Seokmin feels cold on the outside, as he expected to, the chill refusing to leave despite the fireplace Numen has conjured behind his chair to stop his shivers, but beneath that, deeper than that, where Seokmin thinks his soul might live if such a thing exists, he feels warm.

Deep inside, a fire burns, hotter than the one behind him, hotter than anything Seokmin has ever felt, keeping him warm.

It is a very strange thing.

Minghao serves them, his wounds healed just enough by Numen’s magic or his own for him to stagger from one end of the room to the other with his golden trays of food. His gait looks painful, blood trailing down his leg and back, dripping onto the floor and then smearing when he walks through the red marks over and over again.

Numen is relentless, calling for more food, more drink, for plates to be taken away and cleaned, for the candles on the table to be tended, finding something new for Minghao to do every few minutes even as he engages Seokmin in idle small talk about the food, the decoration of the tower, anything at all to cast an even crueler pall over his treatment of his wounded servant.

Seokmin wants to tell him to shut up, but he doesn’t dare. He feels hazy enough that he considers it, but the heat in his chest chides him for it and he listens. Numen would likely take it out on Minghao anyway, whatever Seokmin did, and the last thing Seokmin wants is to cause him more pain.

“Bring out the sweetmeats,” Numen calls, abruptly, not looking at Minghao though the order is obviously directed at him.

Minghao freezes, halfway through putting more fish on Seokmin’s plate, and stares down the table at Numen.

Numen frowns, and Seokmin’s heart starts racing.

“Did you not prepare any sweetmeats for my precious rose, maggot?” Numen demands, his voice harsh. The air around him darkens as he turns his gaze to Minghao, all the candles dimming preternaturally.

Minghao steps away from Seokmin, shaking and then bowing his head. He is braced, posture tense, clearly expecting a blow – Seokmin can only think, helplessly, that he is probably right.

What Numen does, though, is far beyond what Seokmin had anticipated.

Minghao suddenly flies forward, tray and food scattering across the floor, into Numen’s outstretched hand, and as soon as Numen has him he throws him to the floor beside his chair, Minghao’s lips parted but no sound escaping, thoroughly silenced by Numen’s magic.

There is more blood, the crack of bones, and Seokmin’s vision fills with images of that other night, almost a week ago, when Numen had brutalized Minghao and he had done nothing but watch. He cannot go through it again, he cannot live with the nightmares if it happens again, cannot endure this waking nightmare as Numen stands, towering over Minghao, his voice booming out something Seokmin does not understand over the rush of blood in his ears as he shoves his chair back as well and stumbles forward, staring at the tableau in front of him with terror and determination both.

Numen looks up, his tirade cut short, and stares at Seokmin. His eyes are glowing fiercely, darkness pulled around him like a cloak, his lip curled back in a sneer.

“You rise to defend him?” Numen spits, something triumphant in his eyes, and Seokmin realizes, a beat too slow, that this is a trap. Numen was provoking Seokmin by hurting Minghao, and Seokmin fell for it.

Seokmin wants to speak, but a rush of heat comes over him, leaving him dizzy, and he is forced to brace a hand against the table, gasping for breath as he stares up at Numen.

Numen scoffs. “He protects you even now,” he says, venom in his words, and turns to look down at Minghao, unmoving at his feet. “Aesir are such foul creatures, always interfering where they shouldn’t, always getting themselves into trouble.”

Numen lifts his foot and then brings it down with a crack onto Minghao’s shoulder, and Minghao would surely be screaming if he could, his face twisted, contorted, in pain, but still no sound leaves him.

Seokmin cries out for them both, staggering forward another step, desperate to get to Minghao, to protect him, but Numen halts him with a raised hand, Seokmin’s legs giving out beneath him before he can cross the distance.

“Did you think I did not know what he put you up to?” Numen demands, the shadows in the room lengthening, closing in, voice rising to a thunderous pitch. “Did you think I did not know that you had trespassed where you shouldn’t, when you left such careless tells behind?”

He knows about the book, Seokmin realizes with sickening horror. He knows and now he is going to kill Minghao because Seokmin was too clumsy, too careless, because he could not follow Minghao’s simple instructions to hide his presence in the study and left them both vulnerable to discovery.

And now, they have been discovered, and Minghao is the one who will pay the price.

“You promised,” Seokmin gasps out, his last resort, looking at Numen with pleading eyes. He is not ashamed to beg to save Minghao. He gave Numen a kiss already; he can give him words. Seokmin has never been proud, and now he has even less vanity to protect than usual.

He does not care about his self-esteem – he only cares about saving Minghao.

Numen, though, cares about nothing but himself, and evil like that Seokmin has never known how to fight.

When he laughs, Numen’s voice is ugly, thunder and derision, filling the whole of the hall as it ricochets off the walls, vibrating the glimmering gemstones until the light they reflect shakes too, everything in the room seeming to tremble with the demigod’s rage.

“And I fulfilled that oath,” Numen says, Seokmin’s ears aching with the volume and fury of it. “I brought him back. Now you will watch him die, and all for what? What did he even have you steal from me, little nightingale? What was so tempting as to garner your betrayal?”

“You – what –” Seokmin’s speech stumbles and halts, hope rising anew, the whiplash of it dizzying.

“I saw my seeing stone on the floor,” Numen says, his hair whipping about his face, madness in his eyes and, now that Seokmin is looking, desperation there as well – desperation, because he does not know what Seokmin took. “What did you steal? _What did you steal!_”

Seokmin is frozen, possibilities running rampant through his mind, everything washed in the panicked _hope_ that is clawing at him. He does not know what to do, what to say, what to –

He needs to be closer to Numen. He needs –

On the floor, Minghao thrashes, suddenly a blur of motion, red blood and white bone exposed, drawing Numen’s attention, and Seokmin sees it for the opening it is.

He only has one chance at this. Numen does not know that Seokmin took the book, that he was able to read it, that he has spent every night for six nights studying it obsessively –

That Seokmin found the passage on the Titans and knows how to kill him, the only way to kill him, and that Seokmin is now ready to do just that, despite his surety only hours ago that he could not.

Hours ago, Minghao was not lying beneath this monster’s foot, his blood smeared across the edges of Seokmin’s dinner plate and his chest heaving with what threaten to be his final breaths.

With no time to waste, Seokmin throws himself forward, closing the distance to where Numen stands in seconds, and grabs for a knife from the table, clutching it in a shaking hand. Numen looks up when Seokmin reaches him, and his eyes track Seokmin’s movement, going wide and then amused when he sees the knife.

“Stupid mortal,” Numen sneers, reaching for Seokmin, the swipe of his hand lazy with his own arrogance, his own ignorance, allowing Seokmin to dodge him by dropping to the floor. “Simple silver cannot kill me,” he taunts, his foot sliding back, his hand coming down to seize Seokmin by the hair and lift him up, dragging him back to his feet.

Seokmin is ready, though, those few seconds all he needed.

“I know,” he says, clutching the knife to his chest, firming his grip on it in one last desperate moment, “But it can kill me.”

He turns the knife, driving it point-first into his chest, into his heart, twisting it as his lips form the words he saw in the book, hoping as fervently as he has ever hoped before that this works though he has no magic of his own, that the magic of the Aesir which has protected him so far holds true.

Numen’s eyes go wide, and he stumbles back, dropping Seokmin, but he won’t be fast enough.

Seokmin can feel himself dying, but he has time – he has just enough time.

He lunges forward, grabbing at Numen’s leg, but Numen dances back, out of reach, and Seokmin fumbles. His hand falls to the floor and does not support his weight, his vision blurring, going black as his cheek connects with cold marble.

No, no, no – Numen cannot get away! Seokmin doesn’t want to die, he has to save Minghao, he has to save them both.

He has to _live_.

The darkness does not lift, but golden light takes its place, and the details of the room come back, muted but there, as a fervent heat takes hold of him. His very bones are on fire, the flames originating from a single point at his left ankle.

He turns, the room moving hazily, as if he is underwater, and he sees what is causing it.

Minghao lies on the floor behind him, stretched as far as his arm can go, fingers wrapped loosely around Seokmin’s ankle, his eyes closed as he mouths words that whisper an echo in Seokmin’s head. Aesira builds warm and sure in his chest, urging him on, to finish this, to take what Minghao has given him and bear it all outward to its end.

He will.

With Minghao’s magic running through him, Seokmin staggers to his feet, catching sight of Numen exactly where he left him, only a few paces away, expression frozen in terror as Seokmin advances on him.

Seokmin has never killed a man before.

It is easier than he thought.

His hand outstretched, the other clinging to the knife in his chest, he stumbles forward, the incredible heat of Aesir magic burning him with every step, and presses his open palm against Numen’s skin, the exposed column of his throat just above the diamond weave of his robe.

Numen does not move, caught in place by Aesir magic, or perhaps Seokmin given some superhuman speed by the same. He stares blankly as Seokmin rips the knife from himself and drops it to the floor, shoving his other hand more forcefully against Numen’s neck.

When Seokmin closes his eyes, murmuring the Aesira words in perfect harmony with Minghao’s rising voice, he feels the magic surge forward, so hot he thinks he might die, and leave him, emptying itself into Numen’s motionless body. And then, in the next moment, even the body is gone.

Seokmin opens his eyes, blinking away the haze of gold as the heat recedes, the wound in his chest closing up with a wash of fire, and finds Numen gone, nothing resembling him left in the hall. All that remains, scattered across the floor, is a sea of diamonds.

Behind him, Minghao coughs, and Seokmin turns, but as he does the room shakes, not with light or sound now but like an earthquake striking, and Seokmin is thrown to the floor.

The tremors last only a second, and then all is still. All is silent. All is dark.

The candles have gone out, and beyond the absent wall there is no glittering void. Seokmin blinks, and blinks again, and still sees nothing at all.

“Seokmin?” Minghao’s voice is rough and faint, but the sound of it sends a thrill through Seokmin all the same.

“I’m here, Minghao,” he calls, scrabbling against the floor, hands outstretched in search of him.

Minghao finds him quickly, his fingers wrapping tight around Seokmin’s own and pulling him in, pulling him tight against Minghao’s chest. Seokmin smells blood, feels it beneath his hands when he runs one down Minghao’s back and clings to his side with the other, but he presses closer anyway.

Minghao is _alive_, they are both _alive_, and that is all that matters.

“Your voice is back,” Seokmin says, pointlessly, too happy not to voice the thought.

“Numen is dead, so his magic is too,” Minghao says. “I don’t know where the tower is now; he was holding it in place.”

“Are your wings back?” Seokmin asks, struck by the thought. He feels around on Minghao’s back, then in the air behind him, but he can’t find anything.

“No,” Minghao says, a huff of cynical laughter leaving him. “He did that physically, not magically. My wings are gone for good. But, Seokmin –” he pulls away, hands not leaving Seokmin’s sides. “We are _free_. You did it, Seokmin, you saved us both.”

“You did it, too,” Seokmin says, feeling shy at the praise.

“You’re the one who killed him,” Minghao says firmly, wonderingly, gratefully. His eyes are alight, sparkling even in the darkness, the only thing Seokmin can see. At his words, though, something slimy curls around itself in Seokmin’s gut.

He killed him. He killed Numen – a living being, a person. Seokmin killed someone, and he didn’t even hesitate to do it, when it came down to the moment. He hadn’t wanted to do it, hadn’t thought he would be able to, but he did.

He killed someone, and it was horrifyingly, sickeningly easy.

“Hey,” Minghao says, seeming to sense his distress even without light to read Seokmin’s expression by. “You _saved_ us, Seokmin. That’s the part that matters.”

Killing someone matters too, but Seokmin doesn’t particularly want to think about it right now. Thinking about it will just make him sad and queasy, and he doesn’t want that right now. Right now, he wants to be happy – and he wants to get the hell out of this tower.

“How do we get out?” he asks, diverting the conversation, looking out futilely in the dark.

Minghao takes his cue and stands, pulling Seokmin up with him. “Hold on,” he says, and then, in the next moment, there is light, flaring into existence in the air beside them, a perfectly round, perfectly white sphere of starlight.

“Did you do that?” Seokmin gasps, staring at the magical light.

It’s beautiful, small and compact but illuminating the space around them plenty. The diamonds on the floor glitter almost ominously, the rest of the room stripped bare of its decorations, nothing at all to see but plain marble and Minghao, holding onto Seokmin’s hands … and the gaping entryway the missing wall has now become, an obvious way out that entices Seokmin forward to the gentle carpet of grass he can see beyond it, stretching away and growing paler as it does.

“You should wait outside,” Minghao says, Seokmin’s attention whipping back to him as he steps away, trying to release Seokmin as he does – Seokmin does not let him.

Seokmin moves with Minghao, holding onto him. “Where are you going?” he asks, alarmed, glancing between Minghao and the way out. He wants to leave, wants it desperately, but –

But he doesn’t want to leave Minghao behind.

“I will be right behind you; I just need to go fetch the book from where we left it,” Minghao says. He squeezes Seokmin’s hands and tries again to pull away.

Seokmin steps closer, letting go of Minghao’s hands to grab him by the sleeves.

“I’ll go with you, then,” he says. “I don’t – I don’t want to leave without you.”

In the gentle light of his magic, Minghao’s face softens. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but then seems to think better of it and closes it. He inhales deeply and then lets the breath go, his eyes slipping closed for a moment.

Seokmin wants to ask what’s wrong, what he’s doing, if he’s okay, but, before he can, there is a rustling sound and something small and so pale a blue it is almost white comes hurtling into the room, flying towards them to stop, abruptly, at Minghao’s side so that Minghao can pluck it from the air. It’s the book – the Aesir book, the one Seokmin has had hidden in his bedroom for days now.

He is about to exclaim his surprise and pleasure at Minghao’s display of magic, but, before he can, Minghao sways, his feet falling from beneath him, and the only reason he does not hit the floor is that Seokmin catches him, both arms going around his waist to hold him up.

“Minghao, what’s wrong? Minghao?” Seokmin asks, frightened by the way Minghao lies lax in his arms.

After a moment, Minghao stirs, though his movements are sluggish. “It has been a long time since I used this much magic,” he says, quietly, sounding very, very tired. “Numen prevented me from accessing much of it. I am afraid my control is not what it should be.”

“You don’t have to do anything else,” Seokmin assures him. “I’ll take care of you from now on.”

He will. Minghao has protected him so much, and now Seokmin will protect Minghao, will keep him safe and happy and loved. No one will ever hurt Minghao again; Seokmin will not let them. He will bring Minghao home – they will both go home – and nothing will ever hurt either of them again.

Minghao hums against his shoulder, his arms coming up to embrace Seokmin back. “I believe you,” he says, the conviction in his voice doing … something to Seokmin – something good.

Seokmin wants to leave the tower, wants to lead Minghao out beyond its walls to the moonlight he can see now, growing clearer by the moment, just beyond their reach. He wants to leave this place to memory and dust and never return.

First, though, he takes a moment to appreciate _this_ moment, the one where Minghao entrusts his full weight to Seokmin, knowing Seokmin will hold him up, can hold him up, and Seokmin, for once in his life, does not feel that the trust he has been given is ill-earned. Seokmin cannot say he is proud of everything he has done in this place, but he does feel a certain sense of victory now that he never has before.

He hopes his mother will be proud of him. He hopes she will love Minghao, when he brings him home to her.

Though, he thinks, even before he takes a single step, a piece of that place, that feeling, that refuge he has so desperately been craving, is already here beside him, leaning firmly against his side, reminding Seokmin with every breath he takes that he is alive, he is safe, he is _free_.

When Minghao tries to stand, taking some of his weight onto his own feet but still trusting Seokmin to hold him up for the most part, Seokmin braces an arm around his waist and turns them both to face the direction of the beckoning moonlight, the direction of freedom –

The direction of home.

And they walk towards it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be complete, art needs to be seen, experienced, witnessed. So – thank you for reading my fic. I’d love it if you left a comment so I know you engaged with it, because that truly is the goal of every written work – to be engaged with – and it’s always wonderfully gratifying and vitalizing to get confirmation of that from the reader.


End file.
